stock, sent in by Lot's Wife....this is a Lot of work.....
Good compiliation, the rabbit hole run deep
-------------------------
Copyright: Peter Myers asserts the right to be identified
as the author of the material written by him on HIS website, being
material that is not otherwise attributed to another author.
http://mailstar.net/coronavirus.html
------------------------------------------------------------
Coronavirus was developed in a Wuhan lab as a BioWeapon
- Peter Myers, February 27, 2020; update March 27, 2020.
My comments are shown {thus}; write to me at contact.html.
You are at http://mailstar.net/coronavirus.html .
My other pages on the Coronavirus are
Coronavirus Remedies - Chloroquine and Herbal Medicines: coronavirus-remedies.html
. Bureaucrats Fiddle while Rome burns
Helicopter money: Central Banks should directly fund government deficits:
coronavirus-finance.html .
(00) INTRODUCTION, by Peter Myers - added March 27, 2020
(0) Director of Wuhan Institute of Virology issued a notice to researchers
on Jan. 2 forbidding anyone to release info on COVID19
(1) Evidence is presented here that 2019-nCoV Virus was engineered
by virologists in a lab
(2) Zhengli Shi links the bio-engineering of a virulent bat-based coronavirus
at University of North Carolina (UNC) to the BSL-4 virology lab in Wuhan
(3) Chinese article tracing Covid-19 to Wuhen biolab, since removed:
'The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus'
(4) Nature journal (2015): Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky
research; Lab-made coronavirus related to SARS can infect human cells
(5) Wuhan Lab (Prof. Zhengli Shi and Xingyi Ge) did the genetic engineering
for Ralph Baric at UNC
(6) Prof. Zhengli Shi and Xingyi Ge from WIV, in cooperation with University
of North Carolina
(7) The spike glycoprotein of 2019-nCoV contains a cleavage absent in CoV
- showing that it was engineered rather than evolved
(8) Asians show a similar ACE2 expression to other races; => Virus will
affect all races
(9) Wuhan Institute of Virology reports 'Discovery of a rich gene pool
of bat SARS-related coronaviruses' (Nov 2017)
(10) Professor Shi Zhengli is Director of the P4 lab at Wuhan Institute
of Virology
(11) Chinese patent for coronavirus S gene (2004)
(12) Chinese Patent genetic engineering protein FSPA relevant to S protein
of coronavirus SARS- CoV (2005)
(13) Scientific Puzzles surrounding the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus
(14) 2019-nCoV Virus was probably an experimental vaccine, accidentally
released - James Lyons-Weiler
(15) Chinese Canadian Virologist, involved in espionage, made 5 trips to
China in 2017-18, & trained scientists at Wuhan lab
(16) China and Viruses: Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and illegal Shipments from Winnipeg
to China
(17) China bribed Harvard Chemistry Head in espionage case; 2 of his
staff tried to smuggle biological materials to Wuhan
(18) Nanoscientist Charles Lieber lied about his involvement in China's
Thousand Talents Plan
(19) Lieber appeared in Boston federal court wearing orange jail garb and
chains around his ankles. Released on $1M Bond
(20) Also charged: Yanqing Ye (PLA, works at Harvard); Zaosong Zheng
(smuggled 21 vials of biological samples)
(21) 'Hysteria' or 'non-traditional espionage'?
(22) China's Non-Traditional Espionage - statement by FBI
(23) Dr. Francis Boyle: Coronavirus leaked from Wuhan BioLab, as Lyme Disease
& West Nile Disease leaked from US Lab at Plum Island
(24) Professor Francis Boyle, author of the BioWeapons Act, says Coronavirus
is a Biological Warfare Weapon
(25) TRANSCRIPT: Bioweapons Expert Dr. Francis Boyle interview with Geopolitics
& Empire on Coronavirus
(26) Chinese military website: Wuhan Coronavirus is manmade by the
U.S. to attack China
(27) Chinese Communist Party, in video on WeChat, says Wuhan coronavirus
was created by U.S. to attack China
(28) HIV-Like "Mutation" recalls Indian scientists claim:
Coronavirus engineered to incorporate parts of HIV genome
(29) update March 15, 2020: Global Research writers say that Coronavirus
is a US weapon against China, planted deliberately
(30) update March 17, 2020: China orders Lab to stop Leakage; Russia,
Venezuela & Cuba very little affected
(31) Coronavirus Exposed, by Sir Adrian Bond
(32) update March 19, 2020: Coronavirus reveals American Decline;
investors seek Chinese assets as 'Safe Haven'
(33) Francis Boyle reiterates: COVID-19 is a BioWeapon that escaped from
Wuhan lab
(00) INTRODUCTION, by Peter Myers - added March 27, 2020
The Mainstream Media, which we can justly term The Ministry of Truth
(c/- 1984, by George Orwell), is lying to us about Covid-19.
The reason it is so deadly, is that it was developed as a Bioweapon;
but escaped from its lab.
Biological warfare should be outlawed. But developed countries operate
BSL-4 labs, also called P4 labs, under the auspices of the WHO, where they
develop deadly pathogens to release on an enemy one day.
In conjunction with the weapon, they develop a vaccine to protect their
own side. In the case of Covid-19, it was no doubt still in an experimental
stage; no vaccine had been developed at the time.
Which labs were developing it? Two that we know of - the University
of North Carolina, under Professor Ralph Baric, and Wuhan Institute of
Virology, whose P4 lab is headed by Professor Shi Zhengli.
'Shi' is her family name. She is the world expert on bat coronaviruses.
Her photo is at http://archive.is/QIBmE/e4db79e76096564291cea980219a2b374e760304.jpg.
She and Ralph Baric, in conjunction with other virologists from their
two labs and others, were doing joint research, during which they modified
existing viruses, making them more deadly. This is called "gain of
function". It had been outlawed in the US, but the ban was lifted
to enable them to continue.
At the time (2015), a virologist with the Louis Pasteur Institute of
Paris warned: "If the [new] virus escaped, nobody could predict the
trajectory."
Now we know.
Even though the Chinese and US virologists seemed to be in partnership,
Chinese scientists have recently been caught stealing Western technology
and taking it home to China, as part of the Thousand Talents Plan promoted
by its Government for technology transfer. So, no doubt, each side in this
compact had its own agenda.
It's possible that the Pentagon and CIA were secretly involved too.
Now, both sides are covering up their role.
Covid-19 is a kind of SARS virus. A peer-reviewed study in 2005 found
that Chloroquine inhibits SARS CoV.
Chinese hospitals report that Chloroquine is an effective treatment
for Covid-19. But this does not suit Big Pharma in the USA. It wants the
world to wait months or years while they develop vaccines, and test them
- after which they hope to make a killing.
One problem with Chloroquine is that it is cheap, only 30 cents for
a 250mg tablet (however, $4 a tablet in the US). Its patent ran out years
ago; Big Pharma want us to only take patented medicines, which are much
more expensive. Nevertheless, hospitals have been using Chloroquine and
Hydroxychloroquine.
My wife is in isolation, having returned from San Francisco four days
ago. I am taking Chloroquine, old tablets from 40 years ago. I don't throw
old medicines out - just as I keep old machines going. I take the prophylacytic
dosage recommended by the Government of India.
I operate a newsletter and forum. Some people in it have contributed
information about herbal medicines for Coronavirus. For your own safety
and that of other people, I urge you to study it, at coronavirus-remedies.html
.
(0) Director of Wuhan Institute of Virology issued a notice to researchers
on Jan. 2 forbidding anyone to release info on COVID19
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1229422827465592832
Jennifer Zeng @jenniferatntd · Feb 18
More detail report in Chinese here: http://bit.ly/38yhBHy #COVID2019
#Coronavirus #CoronavirusOutbreak #coronaviruschina Quote Tweet
Jennifer Zeng @jenniferatntd · Feb 18
Yanyi Wang (also Wang Yanyi), director of #Wuhan Institute of Virology,
issued a notice to researchers on Jan. 2 to pass on telephone message
by #China's Nation Health Commission, forbidding anyone to release info
of #COVID19. Original and English translation here. #Coronavirus
(1) Evidence is presented here that 2019-nCoV Virus was engineered
by virologists in a lab
- by Peter Myers, February 27, 2020
Evidence is presented here that 2019-nCoV Virus was engineered by virologists
in a lab. James Lyons-Weiler suggests that they were developing an experimental
vaccine; Francis Boyle, author of the BioWeapons Act, says that they were
developing a BioWeapon. In either case, it was released accidentally, most
likely from Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The only other possibility is that it was deliberately planted by the
USA. But is not race-specific; if it spreads worldwide, it will kill people
of all races, and wreck the world economy. Any deliberate attack would
rebound on the attacker.
One common feature of articles blaming a US attack, is that they exonerate
China of any role in developing the virus.
Given the devastation, the Chinese public will want to hold someone
accountable. Although that could be local workers at the Lab, the regime
as a whole is implicated, because it's pushing the "Made in China
2025" agenda, a sort of 10-year plan to achieve economic dominance.
So the Government, to retain the Mandate of Heaven, is shifting the
blame to the USA. However, this could incite war; if not now, then later,
as a contributing factor.
China's draconian measures will probably contain its spread within China.
But then the rest of the world will have to deal with it. It's unlikely
that other countries will be able to suppress transmission in the highly
controlled way China is doing. Therefore there's likely to be a substantial
death toll, worldwide. Healthy people will survive, but those with weak
immune systems could succomb.
Unless some way is found to stop it, this virus will destroy tourism,
business travel, and manufacturing supply-chains. It will make city life
impossible, and ruin the world economy.
Imagine all the airconditioned buildings, buses, trains, planes etc,
vulnerable to aerosol transmission of such a virus. It's not in ANY country's
interest to plant such a disease; it will attack us all, sooner or later.
The MSM has set its 'factcheckers' to refute 'conspiracy theories' about
the Covid-19 virus.
They are also suppressing evidence of Chinese espionage at Western
universities. However, espionage at Harvard University (Charles
Lieber and two Chinese nationals) and Winnipeg NML lab (Xiangguo
Qiu) is well attested.
In both cases, there was a connection to Wuhan. In Lieber's case, Wuhan
University of Technology; and in Qiu's case, Wuhan Institute of Virology
(WIV).
Nature journal reported in 2015 that a bat virus had been engineered
at the University of North Carolina (UNC): "Lab-made coronavirus
related to SARS can infect human cells."
One of the leaders in this project was Shi Zhengli-Li; she used to
work at the University of North Carolina, and obtained US Research
Grants, but then became head of Wuhan BSL-4 Bio-Lab.
Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris,
said that the researchers have created a novel virus that "grows
remarkably well" in human cells. "If the virus escaped, nobody
could predict the trajectory," he said.
Now we know.
Zheng-Li Shi (also written Zhengli Shi, Shi Zhengli, and Shi
Zheng-Li) is a Professor, and director of WIV's P4 lab.
She and Xingyi Ge (also from WIV) did the genetic engineering for
Ralph Baric at UNC, to develop a Coronavirus that could infect humans directly
without animal mediation.
The spike glycoprotein of 2019-nCoV contains a cleavage absent in
CoV - showing that it was engineered rather than evolved.
Asians show a similar ACE2 expression to other races; this means that
2019-nCoV will affect all races. Deliberate release is therefore unlikely,
because it will spread worldwide.
In Nov 2017, Wuhan Institute of Virology reported 'Discovery of a
rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses' (item 9). Zheng-Li
Shi is listed in that article as having the role of "Project administration,
Supervision".
Scientists from other countries were also involved in the research at
Uni North Carolina, and the same would apply to Harvard and Winnipeg. But
only Chinese have been implicated in smuggling genetic material to China
(in the Harvard & Winnipeg cases).
Only Chinese have obtained Resaearch Grants in the USA, and used
that money to promote research in China.
This is a big issue for our Universities, which are hotbeds of
Multiculturalism. They have welcomed these Chinese scientists as migrants,
and given them full rights, only to have China claim them back via its
Thousand Talents Program. China regards all Chinese overseas as Chinese
citizens. Its Thousand Talents Program, pitched at universities in the
West, is a means of Technology Transfer to China.
Now the Universities are endangering public safety by pressing governments
to allow fee-paying students from China to return, despite the risk to
the local population.
China was able to conduct economic espionage for the last 30 years,
because the rest of the world had not woken up to it, distracted by Mideast
wars. But now that the world is awake to China's intentions, a clampdown
is being applied. China is rushing to get as much technology as it can,
by any means. "Made in China 2025" sets a deadline. I submit
that this rush partly explains the leak of 2019-nCoV from Wuhan BioLab.
China touts itself as a Confucian society. This is strange, because
Mao mounted an anti-Confucian drive as part of the Cultural Revolution.
It destroyed much of China's heritage.
After Deng took over, Mao was criticised, but with the rise of Xi, Mao
is spoken of positively and past failings are hushed up.
The reality is that China under Xi is a Stalinist state. Today's Confucianism
is in the service of Stalinism and totalitarianism.
Students are encouraged to spy on their teachers: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/world/asia/china-student-informers.html
Confucian Classrooms in the West are are paid for by the Chinese government.
They indoctrinate Western children with propaganda: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/what-are-confucius-classrooms-and-why-are-they-being-reviewed-in-nsw?
Is that real Confucianism? Would China allow other countries to similarly
influence children in China?
China is the new Soviet Union - a hi-tech Soviet Union.
We seem to be in a re-run of the 1930s. The Cambridge Five of those
days, the Alger Hiss and Harry Hopkins and Dexter White, are the Professor-Spies
of today; with their apologists, of course.
The SCMP of 27 Feb, 2020 reports that Chinese scientists at Nankai
University discovered a HIV-like "mutation" in 2019-nCoV.
This recalls Indian scientists' earlier 'discredited' claim that
Coronavirus was engineered to incorporate parts of the HIV genome.
See item 28 below.
The SCMP report says, "Research by team from Nankai University
shows new virus has mutated gene similar to those found in HIV and Ebola."
Ebola was one of the viruses smuggled from Winnipeg to Wuhan Institute
of Virology by Dr. Xiangguo Qiu; see items 15 & 16 below.
(2) Zhengli Shi links the bio-engineering of a virulent bat-based
coronavirus at University of North Carolina (UNC) to the BSL-4 virology
lab in Wuhan
https://harvardtothebighouse.com/2020/01/31/logistical-and-technical-analysis-of-the-origins-of-the-wuhan-coronavirus-2019-ncov/
Logistical and Technical Exploration into the Origins of the Wuhan Strain
of Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Posted on January 31, 2020 by harvard2thebighouse
An excellent YouTube summary of many but not all of the points in the
report below by a Professor of Neurobiology at UPitt is available here.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT3Ypg9LOWU>
{Updates have been moved to the bottom of this article}
This report is the product of a collaboration between a retired professional
scientist with dozens of peer-reviewed publications and 30 years of
experience in genomic sequencing and analysis who helped design several
ubiquitous bioinformatic software tools, and a former NSA counterterrorism
analyst. It considers whether the Wuhan Strain of coronavirus (COVID-19)
is the result of naturally emergent mutations against the possibility that
it may be a bio-engineered strain directly altered by genetic
manipulation, subject to artificially-guided evolutionary selection,
or both meant for immunotherapy protocols that was released into
the public, most likely by accident since China's rate of occupational
accidents is about ten-times higher than America's, and some twenty-times
more than Europe's the only other regions with high-level virology
labs. Additionally, researchers from this Wuhan lab were reported to have
particularly sloppy field research methods, being both bled and peed on
by local bats that host coronaviruses remarkably similar to the Wuhan Strain
COVID-19. And they've also been reported to smuggle used research animals
out of their labs, selling them for cash on the street. Perhaps unsurprisingly,
in mid February the Chinese Ministry of Science sent out a directive to
all its labs emphasizing the important of carefully handling bio-infectious
agents and alluding to slack oversight and past lapses.
Mistakes may have been precipitated by the need to quickly finish
research that was being rushed for John Hopkins' Event 201 which was
held this past October and meant to gameplan the containment of a global
pandemic. Research may also have been hurried due to deadlines before
the impending Chinese New Year the timing of these events point
to increased human error, not a globalist conspiracy. Beijing has
had four known accidental leaks of the SARS virus in recent years, so there
is absolutely no reason to assume that this strain of coronavirus from
Wuhan didn't accidentally leak out as well. This is unlikely to be a plot
twist in one of the novels Tom Clancy wrote after he started mailing it
in.
Simply and horribly, this is likely to become another Chernobyl or
Fukushima a catastrophic illustration of mankind's hubris and
intransigence clashing with Nature, as fate again reaps a once unimaginably
tragic toll.
Given that this outbreak was said to begin in late December when
most bat species in the region are hibernating and the Chinese horseshoe
bat's habitat covers an enormous swath of the region containing scores
of cities and hundreds of millions people to begin with, the fact that
this Wuhan Strain of coronavirus, denoted as COVID-19 emerged in close
proximity to the only BSL-4 virology lab in China, now notoriously
located in Wuhan, which in turn was staffed with at least two Chinese
scientists Zhengli Shi and Xing-Yi Ge both virologists who
had previously worked at an American lab which already bio-engineered an
incredibly virulent strain of bat coronavirus the accidental
release of a bio-engineered virus meant for defensive immunotherapy research
from Wuhan's virology lab cannot be automatically discounted, especially
when the Wuhan Strain's unnatural genomic signals are considered.
In 2002, Stony Brook first assembled a virus from scratch, building
a polio-virus, and providing proof-of-concept for the creation, alteration,
and manipulation of viral genomes. A generation earlier, artificially enhancing
selection by intentionally infecting countless series of lab animals with
different viruses created the H1N1 Swine Flu. Its Franken-genome has a
mysterious untraceable genetic parentage and a "clear unnatural origin,"
and H1N1 became the poster-child for a moratorium against gain-of-function
research experimentation that seeks to increase a pathogen's virulence,
creating a more effective double-edged sword to counter and learn from.
In the case of H1N1, it wasn't a question of if it'd escaped from a research
laboratory, only whether it'd been designed as part of a weapons system,
or been part of a vaccine trial.
By 2015, conducting research that was met with an enormous
amount of concern, scientists at UNC had successfully created a "chimeric,
SARS-like virus" by altering the viral genome
of a Chinese bat coronavirus's spike-protein genes
sequences that code for the spikes that poke out from surface of
viruses and allow them to unlock entry into hosts,
in this case making the bio-engineered coronavirus incredibly contagious.
This research raised eyebrows since it was clearly gain-of-function
research, a practice banned in America from 2014 until December 2017 when
NIH lifted the ban, specifically to allow research on this sort of virus.
Looking at UNC's gain-of-function research on coronavirus spike-proteins,
which received its funding just before the ban was implemented and was
only allowed to go forward following a special review, a
virologist with the Louis Pasteur Institute of Paris warned: "If the
[new] virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory."
But then oddly, in late January right as the pandemic was blooming,
Dr. Ralph Baric claimed in an interview that people should be more concerned
with the seasonal flu despite having personally overseen the controversial
engineering of a hyper-virulent strain of batty coronavirus just a
few years back. Immediately discounting the burgeoning outbreak of an unknown
coronavirus as a non-event seems particularly troubling for someone who'd
trained two Chinese scientists on how to make hyper-virulent coronaviruses,
especially when it's hard to imagine that Dr. Baric was
unaware his past colleagues were now working at the Wuhan Virology Lab,
the epicenter of the outbreak. Highlighting the dissembling absurdity of
this statement, based on reporting from the Chinese CDC: the
Wuhan Strain COVID-19 appears to be twenty-times more lethal than the seasonal
flu.
Scientists have expressed concern about China's ability to safely
monitor this BSL-4 lab in Wuhan since it opened in 2017: "an open
culture is important to keeping BSL-4 labs safe, and he questions how easy
this will be in China, where society emphasizes hierarchy. 'Diversity of
viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness
of information are important.'" This lab is at most 20 miles from
the wet market where the virus had been assumed to have jumped from animal
to human. However the idea that a Chinese lab could have a viral sample
escape is well-documented as mentioned, one lab in Beijing has had
four separate incidents of the SARS virus leaking out accidentally.
Notably, the first three known cases from early December had
no contact with that market, and roughly one-third of the initial exposed
cohort had no direct ties to Wusan's wild meat wet-market, the original
presumptive source of the virus. And in mid February, reporting indicated
that COVID-19's patient zero in fact had no connection at all with the
wet-market. This is reinforced by the fact Chinese research has also concluded
that COVID-19 "may have begun human-to-human transmission in late
November from a place other than the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan."
Since its discovery, scientists have been unable to fully determine
the zoological origins of COVID-19, it was initially thought to have passed
through snakes, but now all that's agreed upon is that it's mostly bat
in origin. This inability to derive an exact zoological source is exactly
what would be expected if the virus had been artificially engineered to
target humans as UNC already has, this doesn't prove an artificial
nature but it is consistent with one. Although there has been speculation
that pangolins may have been the missing vector, the only data about the
pangolin virome wasn't entered into NCBI's system until late January, and
couldn't possibly have been collected any earlier than late September 2019,
and doesn't fully answer the vector question anyways.
As explained in Nature, COVID-19's Franken-genome combines
a cornucopia of distinct genetic markers from each of the three other distinct
branches of the coronavirus family tree, but is distinct enough
from all of them that it in fact forms its own clade. Along those same
lines, a full-genome evolutionary analysis of COVID-19 published in The
Lancet concluded, "recombination is probably not the reason for emergence
of this virus" since it seems that the Wuhan Strain isn't a mosaic
of previously known coronaviruses, but instead draws from distant, discrete
parts of the coronavirus family tree not how these viruses naturally
evolve. Because even mixing and matching coronavirus genomes from every
known mammal, scientists couldn't find any possible combination that would
explain those regions of the Wuhan Strain's genome. The Lancet muses that
a mysterious animal host could still be out there, however since they've
already searched through every known possibility and been unable to find
a match, another obvious explanation is that bio-engineering accounts for
the inexplicable regions of the Wuhan Strain's genome
Early research found that COVID-19 targets the ACE2 receptor,
which may be found in East Asians more frequently than other global populations,
indicating that the Wuhan Strain COVID-19 was likely developed as part
of a gain-of-function defensive project possibly linked to immunotherapy
or vaccinations never meant to leave the lab, but meant to serve
as a Red Team to fight back against, not as an offensive weapon since the
virus is likely wired to be more virulent among Asian populations. Further
support for this is the fact that the Wuhan BSL-4 virology lab was already
actively looking into the risks posed from bat coronaviruses, and actively
researching coronavirus treatments by definition both of these projects
would require live virulent strains of coronavirus. And disturbingly, COVID-19
appears to have 10 to 20 times more affinity for the ACE2 receptor than
SARS, according to a pre-print out of the University of Texas.
Researchers have pointed out that the most critical sections of
the COVID-19's protein-spike genome don't match the previously reported
pattern that would be expected for optimal binding to the ACE2 receptors
found in humans and ferrets, which indicates that these particular segments
wouldn't have been directly genetically engineered to increase virulence.
However this is exactly what researchers looking for a "safe"
vaccine candidate would engineer, and doesn't rule out a scenario where
the virus was passed through a series of experimental hosts. The research
team in fact notes that its spike "appears to be the result of selection
on human or human-like ACE2 permitting another optimal binding solution
to arise," failing to mention that the only other human-like receptors
are found in ferrets which have frequently been used in vaccine trials
for viruses with this sort of protein-spike. And so the Wuhan Strain's
unique affinity for the human ACE2 receptor may be a horrible accident,
engineered but not intentionally.
The Wuhan Strain of coronavirus, COVID-19, appears to be
transmissible even before its host shows any symptoms at all,
making temperature-scanning at airports ineffective since hosts appear
to be contagious for about a week before any symptoms emerge. This is in
stark contrast with SARS, whose hosts weren't contagious until they were
symptomatic, allowing for its relatively quick containment. This chart
is not from a peer-reviewed source but was claims to capture the comparative
rates of infections between recent outbreaks. A recent pre-print now gives
COVID-19 a rating of R4, meaning each host passes the virus on to four
new victims, a rate significantly higher than any past global viral outbreak.
The successful end results of the aforementioned bat coronavirus
bio-engineering research at UNC that was critiqued for being too
risky in 2015, was published the following year and described the successful
bio-engineering of a highly-virulent coronavirus derived from bats which
was achieved by tinkering with its spike-protein genes. In this paper,
researcher #8 is listed as one "Zheng-li Shi" who's listed as
being attached to the "Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety,
Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China."
Zhengli Shi seems to have returned to Wuhan at some point since
2016, specifically to the Wuhan Institute of Virology's Disease Engineering
Technical Research Center, since she then appears in this September
2019 paper on the human behaviors most likely to lead to bat-borne coronavirus
exposure in southern China, and also in the paper claiming that this
coronavirus was bat in origin, which was peculiarly submitted in coordination
with the announcement of the outbreak. Very, very peculiarly. She also
appears in this pending preprint on the current outbreak of COVID-19, just
a small sample of the dozens of coronavirus-related papers she's published
over a three decade career.
Not only does Zhengli Shi provide a direct chain of expertise
tying the already successful bio-engineering of a virulent bat-based coronavirus
at UNC directly to the BSL-4 virology lab in Wuhan, but back in
January 2014 she'd received a $665,000 grant from NIH for a study titled
The Ecology of Bat Coronaviruses and the Risk of Future Coronavirus Emergence
(NIAID R01 AI1 10964) as well as $559,500 more from USAID for a study titled
Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT_2China (Project No. AID-OAA-A-14-00102).
Beyond this American funding specifically into viral diseases zoonotically
transferring from animals to humans which would slipped in just before
the ban, over the years she's also received around $3 million in grants
to study these zoonotic viruses from China and other countries, and has
served on the editorial board of several virological research magazines.
More of her research into the intersection of coronaviruses like the Wuhan
Strain and their epidemic potential was funded by the U.S. Department of
Defense, the U.S. Threat Reduction Agency, and U.S. Biological Defense
Research Directorate of the Naval Medical Research Center.
And so a scientist who's been prolifically involved with studying
the molecular interaction of coronaviruses and humanity, spending decades
and millions of dollars, and having even helped build a hyper-virulent
coronavirus from scratch at UNC just so happens to be working at
the only BSL-4 virology lab in China that also just so happens to be at
the epicenter of an outbreak involved a coronavirus that's escaping
zoological classification, and has other unnatural characteristics that
will be discussed below.
Another Chinese virologist, Xing-Yi Ge, appears as an author
on the 2016 UNC paper and is also attached to the lab in Wuhan. Previously
in 2013, he'd successfully isolated a SARS-like coronavirus from bats which
targets the ACE2 receptor, just like our present virus, the Wuhan Coronavirus
COVID-19 uses. And it turns out that sections of the Wuhan Strain's
ACE2 receptor's genes are unique: they're almost identical to SARS's spike-protein
genes despite the fact that almost none of the two coronavirus's
genomes are similar anywhere else at all. Beyond that, although the Wuhan
Strain's spike-protein genome differs from SARS in four out of the five
most important genomic spots that determine binding to the ACE2 receptor,
they surprisingly don't effect the protein-spike's shape. And in an even
bigger coincidence, these four spots also code for the outside region of
the spike that allows entry into cells, and do not effect it either
allowing the Wuhan Strain to still use the ACE2 receptor to unlock cells
while possibly gaining additional capabilities. The odds that this concordance
was bio-engineered into the virus are several orders of magnitude more
likely than for this to randomly have evolved in nature.
Numerous videos purportedly from inside hospitals in Wuhan depict
a crisis that is far greater than the numbers released by China to date.
There is widespread but unverified online reporting that Wuhan crematoriums
have been running 24/7, which is consistent with a recent peer-reviewed
study that claims that as of January 25, Wuhan had over 75,000 infections
when the official number was just 761. Chinese language social media
also reflects a sense of panic and desperation that is highly discordant
with the numbers being released by the Chinese government. Who, notably,
are refusing any direct assistance from the American CDC. (Evidence that
China is vastly downplaying this pandemic's severity: Example 1. Example
2. Example 3. Example 4. Example 5. Example 6.)
Some of the dystopian carnage creeping across China may be due
to the fact that much of China's population may have already been exposed
to coronavirus infection via SARS or other less notorious strains, which
would allow the Wuhan Stain COVID-19 to use antibody-dependent enhancement
to much more efficiently enter into cells, and then become much more virulent
since this enhancement hijacks the body's preexisting immune response to
coronavirus infections and allows easier entry. However whether or not
people have been exposed to a coronavirus infection before, once it's been
circulating in a population for long enough the Wuhan Strain may be able
to reinfect its own past hosts and use this molecular hijacking on antibodies
left from its own previous infection to become far more virulent, regardless
of whether or not someone has been exposed to other coronaviruses before
COVID-19. And early reporting from Chinese doctors indicates that re-infections
of the Wuhan Strain are far more lethal than the first.
Additionally, although another since-retracted pre-print noted
several very short genomic sequences in COVID-19's spike-protein gene that
look far more similar to sequences found in HIV than to other coronaviruses
critics quickly pointed out that the shared homology didn't reach
statistical significance. However a closer look at the data reveals that
there were a few small shared genomic segments that, despite being physically
separated from each other along each strand of DNA, all worked together
to code for the Wuhan Strain's protein-spike's crucial receptor binding
site. Something that is highly unlikely to have happened by chance. And
despite most of its protein-spike being shared with SARS, these substituted
segments weren't shared at all nor were they found in any other coronavirus.
One possible reason for these HIV-like segments is that they were meant
to be epitopes, or molecular flags meant to mark intruders for a vaccine
to target. It is mathematically possible for this to happen in nature
but only in a ten-thousand bats chained to ten-thousand Petri dishes and
given until infinity sense. Alternatively, it could also be produced by
infecting a room full of ferrets with a bespoke coronavirus vaccine and
sifting through the wreckage for your genomic needle.
Critics have brushed off the Wuhan Strain's shared homology
with HIV as statistically insignificant, however clinical reporting
indicates that the Wuhan Strain may be using this shared HIV homology
to attack CD4 immune cells just like HIV does, as an unusually high
percentage of patients are showing low white blood cell counts, especially
the sickest ones. This pathogenicity may well be due to the unique HIV-live
genomics of the Wuhan Strain, as one white-paper by LSU's professor emeritus
of Microbiology, Immunology, and Parasitology who's also a Harvard-educated
virologist with a PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics notes: "This
is the first description of a possible immunosuppressive domain in coronaviruses
or COVID-19. The three key [mutations] common to the known immunosuppressive
domains are also in common with the sequence from [the spike-protein].
While coronaviruses are not known for general immunosuppression of the
style shown by HIV-1, this does not rule out immunosuppression at the site
of active infection in the lung, which would prolong and potentially worsen
infection at that site." Even more troubling, a peer-reviewed study
noted that one particular part of the Wuhan Strain's spike-protein genome
also wasn't found in any of its relatives, "and may provide a gain-of-function
to [COVID-19] for efficient spreading in the human population." And
according to that paper, this particular type of cleavage site makes similar
viruses both more pathogenic and more neurotoxic.
And it should be noted that SARS much ballyhooed as a close
relative to the Wuhan Strain didn't notable effect white blood cell
counts. Additionally, clinical treatment guides published online in late
January by established Chinese medical sources note the progressive reduction
of white blood cells, as well as the importance of monitoring this decline.
And reporting from Thailand indicates that adding a cocktail of two different
anti-HIV drugs to the typical flu treatment regime seemed to effectively
knock back the Wuhan Strain. Additionally, one of the only autopsies performed
outside of China to date found that the deceased had a severely depleted
white blood cell count. These lowered counts may come from this shared
similarity with HIV, or it could also be the result of antibody-dependent
enhancement as well, since this phenomenon primarily targets white blood
cells for its hijackings.
In a highly concerning turn, scientists have noted that the Wuhan
Strain can have a "striking" short term rate of mutation which
doesn't indicate an artificial origin but captures the unique threat posed
by this coronavirus regardless of its providence, since a faster mutation
rates makes it more likely this virus can dodge testing and neutralize
vaccines. Something there is already early evidence for. Further concerning
are reports out of China that even patients who appear cured still harbor
COVID-19 in their system, and although the full implications of this are
not yet known none of them are good.
Giving further credence to the idea that the Wuhan Strain was
bio-engineered is the existence of a patent application that looks to modulate
a coronavirus' spike-protein genes the precise region altered by
Zhengli Shi at UNC to make a hyper-virulent strain of coronavirus, and
whose alteration and adaptation would explain the Wuhan Strain's unusual
behavior as discussed above.
And curiously, the head of Harvard's Chemistry Department,
Dr. Charles Lieber, was arrested in the midst of this outbreak on charges
that he'd been accepting millions of dollars in bribes from the Chinese
government. According to his charging documents, Dr. Lieber first went
to the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT), in November 2011 to participate
in a nanotechnology forum, which was when he was recruited into a bribery
scheme that would net him several million dollars to "establish a
research lab and conduct research at WUT," which became known
as " Joint Nano Key Laboratory," as well as mentor and advocate
for graduate students. By 2015, Dr. Lieber appeared to be fairly intimately
involved with what seemed to begin as simply a nanotechnology lab, but
now had shifted to involve biology as well, since he described visiting
the lab multiple times per year "as we try to build up the nano-bio
part of the lab." Whether or not this nano-bio part of the Nano Key
Laboratory is related to Wuhan's BSL-4 virology lab isn't clear, however
if the Wuhan Strain was bio-engineered, technology classified as "nano-bio"
would've almost certainly played a role.
Given the above facts, either:
A coronavirus spontaneously mutated and jumped to humans at a
wet market or deep in some random bat cave which just so happened to be
20 miles from China's only BSL-4 virology lab, a virus with an unusually
slippery never-before-seen genome that's evading zoological classification,
that may be as much as twenty-times more contagious than SARS and whose
spike-protein region which allows it to enter host cells holds an unique
HIV-like signature with the concomitant clinical response, that somehow
managed to infect its patient zero who had no connection to this market,
and then be so fined-tuned to humans that it's gone on to create the single
greatest public health crisis in Chinese history with approaching 100 million
citizens locked-down or quarantined also causing Mongolia to close
its border with its largest trading partner for the first time in modern
history and Russia to ban Chinese citizens from entry into their country.
Or, Chinese scientists failed to follow correct sanitation
protocols possibly while in a rush leading up to an international virological
conference and during their boisterous holiday season, something that
had been anticipated since the opening of the BSL-4 lab and has happened
at least four times previously, and accidentally released this bio-engineered
Wuhan Strain likely created by scientists researching immunotherapy
regimes against bat coronaviruses, who've already demonstrated the ability
to perform every step necessary to bio-engineer the Wuhan Strain COVID-19
into their population, and now the world. As would be expected, this
virus appears to have been bio-engineered at the spike-protein genes which
was already done at UNC to make an extraordinarily virulent coronavirus.
Chinese efforts to prevent the full story about what's going on from getting
out are because they want the scales to be even since they're now facing
a severe pandemic and depopulation event. No facts point against this conclusion.
Speaking volumes about the corporatized nature of our media, the only
entities to acknowledge my research and journalism have been Zero Hedge,
which received a permanent ban from Twitter for opening the door to this
obvious possibility, and Jennifer Zeng of the Epoch Times. Something tells
me Tencent or other companies controlled by the CCP have significant capital
invested in Buzzfeed, which drew censure to Zero Hedge's reporting, as
well as many other media outlets which have stifled discussion of the outbreak
such as Reddit. These companies have been willing to endanger millions
of lives for a few dollars. And since clicks come way before integrity,
multiple media outlets and journalists have entirely ignored me after I've
provided proof that I've broken details of this story, appropriating my
work for their own.
Read more from the former NSA counterterorrism analyst here, and learn
why social inequalities are the most likely source of sustained violence
in America.
Find out about why a lot of what you think you know about evolutionary
biology is wrong.
Medium user @siradrianbond provided all information regarding Dr. Zheng-li's
extensive grant funding.
UPDATE 2/14, 3:02am EST: A probable smoking pre-print has been released,
by the National Natural Science Foundation of China:
"In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV
coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate
host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan."
In a predictable turn, that article has been removed and both
researchers have since deleted their profiles off of the ResearchGate site
completely. But curiously, the trend in reporting from the Chinese
government diverged sharply on February 11th, when the paper was initially
uploaded onto the site making it appear as if there may be infighting
within the Party about what their official story will be as the cover-up
unfolds. And back on January 2nd, the Wuhan Institute of Virology's
director sent out a memo forbidding discussion of an "unknown pneumonia
in Wuhan," making it abundantly clear that the Chinese government
knew about this outbreak long before they took any steps to contain it,
or made any public announcement.
These propaganda efforts have been bolstered by possible collusion
from American scientists, some of which is detailed below but
also most notably by one Peter Daszak, who had been publishing papers
on coronaviruses alongside the primary Chinese person-of-interest, Zhengli
Shi, for years. Perhaps most notably, Daszak is listed as a co-author
in the paper first documenting the isolation of a coronavirus from a bat
that targets the ACE2 receptor just like COVID-19 which was
done in Wuhan's virology lab supervised by Zhengli Shi, and led by
a second suspect Chinese researcher who you'll meet below. At best, Daszak
is perhaps acting as an unwitting agent of the Chinese government, but
regardless holds an enormous conflict-of-interest. And if nothing else,
it is wildly irresponsible to speak-out against the possibility that the
virus got out of a lab when a natural origin has not been conclusively
demonstrated. Daszak's statement in The Lancet is either incompetence,
or is meant to be a smokescreen for the wanton hubris and greed that
have fueled the gain-of-function research detailed below: As one possibility,
coronaviruses have been seen as a viable vector for an HIV vaccine for
years a project with hundreds of millions of dollars dangling over
it.
Such a vaccine is just one possible gain-of-function pursuit that would
fit much of the genomic picture below, whether or not it was the exact
target of the Wuhan lab's genomic tinkering the reality is millions
of dollars of funding from multiple world governments have poured into
this research, funding that's dangled over these scientists as they've
chased it like Icarus, this time not just risking their own lives
but hundreds of millions of others as well.
(3) Chinese article tracing Covid-19 to Wuhen biolab, since removed:
'The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus'
ORIGINAL AT https://www.docdroid.net/EZUN6cB/originsof2019-ncov-xiaob-res.pdf
The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus
Preprint · February 2020
TEXT FOLLOWS
See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339070128
The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus
Preprint - February 2020
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.21799.29601
2 authors, including:
Botao Xiao
South China University of Technology 26 PUBLICATIONS 265 CITATIONS
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Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related
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All content following this page was uploaded by Botao Xiao on 06 February
2020.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.
The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus
Botao Xiao12 and Lei Xiao3
1 Joint International Research Laboratory of Synthetic Biology and Medicine,
School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China University of
Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China
2 School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan 430074, China
3 Tian You Hospital, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan
430064, China
The 2019-nCoV coronavirus has caused an epidemic of 28,060 laboratory-confirmed
infections in human including 564 deaths in China by February 6, 2020.
Two descriptions of the virus published on Nature this week indicated that
the genome sequences from patients were 96% or 89% identical to the Bat
CoV ZC45 coronavirus originally found in Rhinolophus affinis 12. It was
critical to study where the pathogen came from and how it passed onto human.
An article published on The Lancet reported that 41 people in Wuhan
were found to have the acute respiratory syndrome and 27 of them had contact
with Huanan Seafood Market3. The 2019-nCoV was found in 33 out of 585 samples
collected in the market after the outbreak. The market was suspicious to
be the origin of the epidemic, and was shut down according to the rule
of quarantine the source during an epidemic.
The bats carrying CoV ZC45 were originally found in Yunnan or Zhejiang
province, both of which were more than 900 kilometers away from
the seafood market. Bats were normally found to live in caves and trees.
But the seafood market is in a densely-populated district of Wuhan, a metropolitan
of ~15 million people. The probability was very low for the bats to
fly to the market. According to municipal reports and the testimonies
of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food source in
the city, and no bat was traded in the market. There was possible natural
recombination or intermediate host of the coronavirus, yet little proof
has been reported. Was there any other possible pathway? We screened the
area around the seafood market and identified two laboratories conducting
research on bat coronavirus. Within ~280 meters from the market,
there was the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention (WHCDC)
(Figure 1, from Baidu and Google maps). WHCDC hosted animals in laboratories
for research purpose, one of which was specialized in pathogens collection
and identification
6. In one of their studies, 155 bats including Rhinolophus affinis were
captured in Hubei province, and other 450 bats were captured in Zhejiang
province 4 The expert in collection was noted in the Author Contributions
(JHT). Moreover, he was broadcasted for collecting viruses on nation-wide
newspapers and websites in 2017 and 2019 7 8. He described that he was
once by attacked by bats and the blood of a bat shot on his skin. He knew
the extreme danger of the infection so he quarantined himself for 14 days
7. In another accident, he quarantined himself again because bats peed
on him. He was once thrilled for capturing a bat carrying a live tick8.
Surgery was performed on the caged animals and the tissue samples were
collected for DNA and RNA extraction and sequencing 4'5. The tissue samples
and contaminated trashes were source of pathogens. They were only ~280
meters from the seafood market. The WHCDC was also adjacent to the Union
Hospital (Figure 1, bottom) where the first group of doctors were infected
during this epidemic. It is plausible that the virus leaked around and
some of them contaminated the initial patients in this epidemic, though
solid proofs are needed in future study.
The second laboratory was ~12 kilometers from the seafood market
and belonged to Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of
Sciences ^9'10. This laboratory reported that the Chinese horseshoe bats
were natural reservoirs for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
(SARS-CoV) which caused the 2002-3 pandemic9.
The principle investigator participated in a project which generated
a chimeric virus using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, and reported
the potential for human emergence 10. A direct speculation was that
SARS-CoV or its derivative might leak from the laboratory.
In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV
coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate
host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in
Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous
laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories
far away from city center and other densely populated places.
Contributors
BX designed the comment and performed literature search. All authors
performed data acquisition and analysis, collected documents, draw the
figure, and wrote the papers.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (11772133, 11372116).
Declaration of interests
All authors declare no competing interests.
References
1. Zhou P, Yang X-L, Wang X-G, et al. A pneumonia outbreak associated
with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2012-7.
2. Wu F, Zhao S, Yu B, et al. A new coronavirus associated with human
respiratory disease in China. Nature 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2008-3.
3. Huang C, Wang Y, Li X, et al. Clinical features of patients infected
with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. The Lancet 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5.
4. Guo WP, Lin XD, Wang W, et al. Phylogeny and origins of hantaviruses
harbored by bats, insectivores, and rodents. PLoS pathogens 2013; 9(2):
el 003159.
5. Lu M, Tian JH, Yu B, Guo WP, Holmes EC, Zhang YZ. Extensive diversity
of rickettsiales bacteria in ticks from Wuhan, China. Ticks and tick-borne
diseases 2017; 8(4): 574-80.
6. Shi M, Lin XD, Chen X, et al. The evolutionary history of vertebrate
RNA viruses. Nature 2018; 556(7700): 197-202.
7. Tao P. Expert in Wuhan collected ten thousands animals: capture bats
in mountain at night. Changjiang Times 2017.
8. Li QX, Zhanyao. Playing with elephant dung, fishing for sea bottom
mud: the work that will change China's future, thepaper 2019.
9. Ge XY, Li JL, Yang XL, et al. Isolation and characterization of a
bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor. Nature 2013; 503(7477):
535-8.
10. Menachery VD, Yount BL, Jr., Debbink K, et al. A SARS-like cluster
of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence. Nature
medicine 2015; 21(12): 1508-13.
(4) Nature journal (2015): Engineered bat virus stirs debate over
risky research; Lab-made coronavirus related to SARS can infect human cells
https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787
Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research
Lab-made coronavirus related to SARS can infect human cells.
Declan Butler
12 November 2015
An experiment that created a hybrid version of a bat coronavirus
- one related to the virus that causes SARS (severe acute respiratory
syndrome) - has triggered renewed debate over whether engineering lab
variants of viruses with possible pandemic potential is worth the risks.
In an article published in Nature Medicine on 9 November, scientists
investigated a virus called SHC014, which is found in horseshoe bats
in China. The researchers created a chimaeric virus, made up of
a surface protein of SHC014 and the backbone of a SARS virus that had been
adapted to grow in mice and to mimic human disease. The chimaera infected
human airway cells- proving that the surface protein of SHC014 has
the necessary structure to bind to a key receptor on the cells and to infect
them. It also caused disease in mice, but did not kill them.
Although almost all coronaviruses isolated from bats have not been able
to bind to the key human receptor, SHC014 is not the first that can do
so. In 2013, researchers reported this ability for the first time in a
different coronavirus isolated from the same bat population 2.
The findings reinforce suspicions that bat coronaviruses capable of
directly infecting humans (rather than first needing to evolve in an intermediate
animal host) may be more common than previously thought, the researchers
say.
But other virologists question whether the information gleaned from
the experiment justifies the potential risk. Although the extent of
any risk is difficult to assess, Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at
the Pasteur Institute in Paris, points out that the researchers have created
a novel virus that "grows remarkably well" in human cells. "If
the virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory," he says.
Creation of a chimaera
The argument is essentially a rerun of the debate over whether to
allow lab research that increases the virulence, ease of spread or
host range of dangerous pathogens - what is known as 'gain-of-function'
research. In October 2014, the US government imposed a moratorium on
federal funding of such research on the viruses that cause SARS, influenza
and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome, a deadly disease caused by
a virus that sporadically jumps from camels to people).
The latest study was already under way before the US moratorium began,
and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) allowed it to proceed
while it was under review by the agency, says Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease
researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a co-author
of the study. The NIH eventually concluded that the work was not so risky
as to fall under the moratorium, he says.
But Wain-Hobson disapproves of the study because, he says, it
provides little benefit, and reveals little about the risk that the wild
SHC014 virus in bats poses to humans.
Other experiments in the study show that the virus in wild bats would
need to evolve to pose any threat to humans - a change that may never happen,
although it cannot be ruled out. Baric and his team reconstructed the wild
virus from its genome sequence and found that it grew poorly in human cell
cultures and caused no significant disease in mice.
"The only impact of this work is the creation, in a lab, of
a new, non-natural risk," agrees Richard Ebright, a molecular
biologist and biodefence expert at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New
Jersey. Both Ebright and Wain-Hobson are long-standing critics of gain-of-function
research.
In their paper, the study authors also concede that funders may think
twice about allowing such experiments in the future. "Scientific review
panels may deem similar studies building chimeric viruses based on circulating
strains too risky to pursue," they write, adding that discussion is
needed as to "whether these types of chimeric virus studies warrant
further investigation versus the inherent risks involved".
Useful research
But Baric and others say the research did have benefits. The
study findings "move this virus from a candidate emerging pathogen
to a clear and present danger", says Peter Daszak, who co-authored
the 2013 paper. Daszak is president of the EcoHealth Alliance, an international
network of scientists, headquartered in New York City, that samples viruses
from animals and people in emerging-diseases hotspots across the globe.
Studies testing hybrid viruses in human cell culture and animal models
are limited in what they can say about the threat posed by a wild virus,
Daszak agrees. But he argues that they can help indicate which pathogens
should be prioritized for further research attention.
Without the experiments, says Baric, the SHC014 virus would still be
seen as not a threat. Previously, scientists had believed, on the basis
of molecular modelling and other studies, that it should not be able to
infect human cells. The latest work shows that the virus has already
overcome critical barriers, such as being able to latch onto human receptors
and efficiently infect human airway cells, he says. "I don't think
you can ignore that." He plans to do further studies with the virus
in non-human primates, which may yield data more relevant to humans.
Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2015.18787
References
Menachery, V. D. et al. Nature Med. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nm.3985
(2015).
Ge, X.-Y. et al. Nature 503, 535538 (2013). ==
The above comments relate to the research at the University of North
Carolina, as reported in this paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985
Letter
Published: 09 November 2015
A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential
for human emergence
Vineet D Menachery, Boyd L Yount Jr, Kari Debbink, Sudhakar Agnihothram,
Lisa E Gralinski, Jessica A Plante, Rachel L Graham, Trevor Scobey, Xing-Yi
Ge, Eric F Donaldson, Scott H Randell, Antonio Lanzavecchia, Wayne
A Marasco, Zhengli-Li Shi & Ralph S Baric
Nature Medicine volume 21, pages15081513(2015)Cite this article
[...] Synthetic construction of chimeric mutant and full-length SHC014-CoV
was approved by the University of North Carolina Institutional Biosafety
Committee and the Dual Use Research of Concern committee.
Ethics statement.
This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations for
the care and use of animals by the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare
(OLAW), NIH. The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) of
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, Permit Number A-3410-01)
approved the animal study protocol (IACUC #13-033) used in these studies.
[...]
(5) Wuhan Lab (Prof. Zhengli Shi and Xingyi Ge) did the genetic engineering
for Ralph Baric at UNC
https://deplorablecoder.club/index.php?id=10725
Wuhan Lab did the genetic engineering for Baric (publicplace)
by Ugly Bag of Mostly Water,
Sunday, January 26, 2020, 13:36 (30 days ago)
Actual website of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (the bioweapons
lab) confirming two of their scientists are the ones that did the genetic
engineering for Ralph Baric of the SARS virus to make it hyper dangerous
to humans (engineered a bioweapon)
http://english.whiov.cas.cn/Research2016/Research_Progress2016/201712/t20171215_187953.html
Recently, Prof. Zhengli Shi and Xingyi Ge from WIV, in cooperation with
researchers from University of North Carolina, Harvard Medical School,
Bellinzona Institute of Microbiology and etc, examine the disease potential
of a SARS-like virus, SHC014-CoV, which is currently circulating in Chinese
horseshoe bat populations. Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system,
the scientists generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing
the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone.
The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in
a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS
receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently
in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to
epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic
and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody
and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection
with CoVs using the novel spike protein.
On the basis of these findings, they synthetically re-derived an infectious
full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication
both in vitro and in vivo. The work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV
re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations.
Here's Baric's paper showing their names: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797993/
SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronavirus pose threat for human
emergence
Vineet D. Menachery,1 Boyd L. Yount, Jr,1 Kari Debbink,1,2 Sudhakar
Agnihothram,3 Lisa E. Gralinski,1 Jessica A. Plante,1 Rachel L. Graham,1
Trevor Scobey,1 Xing-Yi Ge,8 Eric F. Donaldson,1 Scott H. Randell,4,5
Antonio Lanzavecchia,6 Wayne A. Marasco,7 Zhengli-Li Shi,8 and
Ralph S. Baric1,2
8 Zhengli-Li Shi - Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety,
Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
8 Xing-Yi Ge - Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety,
Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
This PROVES - with highly credible references - that the Wuhan lab
has actively and successfully genetically engineered and tested SARS contagions
specifically designed to create global pandemics capable of wiping
out much of the human species.
Comment (Peter M.): I disavow that last sentence, where intent is expressed.
I doubt that these scientists had any harmful intent. But they knew that
they were playing with fire. Other virologists had sounded the alarm over
what they were doing.
The Nature article referenced in item 4above, 'Engineered bat virus
stirs debate over risky research', referring to engineering in which Zhengli
Shi and Xingyi Ge were involved, reports:
'Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris,
points out that the researchers have created a novel virus that "grows
remarkably well" in human cells. "If the virus escaped, nobody
could predict the trajectory," he says.'
(6) Prof. Zhengli Shi and Xingyi Ge from WIV, in cooperation with
University of North Carolina
http://english.whiov.cas.cn/Research2016/Research_Progress2016/201712/t20171215_187953.html
whiov = Wuhan Institute of Virology; CAS = Chinese Academy of Sciences
Research Progress
Will SARS come back?
Date 04-12-2015
The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)
and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV underscores the threat
of cross-species transmission events leading to outbreaks in humans.
Recently, Prof. Zhengli Shi and Xingyi Ge from WIV, in cooperation
with researchers from University of North Carolina, Harvard Medical
School, Bellinzona Institute of Microbiology and etc, examine the disease
potential of a SARS-like virus, SHC014-CoV, which is currently circulating
in Chinese horseshoe bat populations. Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics
system, the scientists generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing
the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone.
The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in
a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS
receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently
in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent
to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic
and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody
and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection
with CoVs using the novel spike protein.
On the basis of these findings, they synthetically re-derived an infectious
full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication
both in vitro and in vivo. The work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV
re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations.
Source: Nature Medicine doi:10.1038/nm.3985
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797993/
Nat Med. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 Jun 1. Published in
final edited form as: Nat Med. 2015 Dec; 21(12): 15081513.
Published online 2015 Nov 9. doi: 10.1038/nm.3985 PMCID: PMC4797993
NIHMSID: NIHMS766724 PMID: 26552008
SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronavirus pose threat for human
emergence Vineet D. Menachery, 1 Boyd L. Yount, Jr,1 Kari Debbink, 1,2
Sudhakar Agnihothram, 3 Lisa E. Gralinski, 1 Jessica A. Plante, 1 Rachel
L. Graham, 1 Trevor Scobey, 1 Xing-Yi Ge, 8 Eric F. Donaldson, 1 Scott
H. Randell, 4,5 Antonio Lanzavecchia, 6 Wayne A. Marasco, 7 Zhengli-Li
Shi, 8 and Ralph S. Baric 1,2
(7) The spike glycoprotein of 2019-nCoV contains a cleavage absent
in CoV - showing that it was engineered rather than evolved
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166354220300528
Antiviral Research
The spike glycoprotein of the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV contains a furin-like
cleavage site absent in CoV of the same clade
B.Coutard, C.Valle, X.de Lamballerie, B.Canard, N.G.Seidah, E.Decroly
-> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2020.104742
== also see this youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT3Ypg9LOWU&feature=youtu.be&t=25
Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) (Covid-19) -- Special Weekend Edition? -- J.C.
on a bike! (#0045)
16 Feb 2020
(8) Asians show a similar ACE2 expression to other races; => Virus
will affect all races
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202002.0258/v1/download
Asians and other races express similar levels of and share the same
genetic polymorphisms of the SARS-CoV-2 cell-entry receptor
Ying Chen1,2, Kejia Shan1,2,3, and Wenfeng Qian1,2,,3*
1 State Key Laboratory of Plant Genomics, Institute of Genetics and
Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
2 Key Laboratory of Genetic Network Biology, Institute of Genetics and
Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
* Correspondence to:
Wenfeng Qian
Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology Chinese Academy of Sciences
Beijing 100101, China
Email: wfqian@genetics.ac.cn
ABSTRACT
The recurrent coronavirus outbreaks in China (SARS-CoV and its relative,
SARS-CoV-2) raise the possibility that Asians are more susceptible to coronavirus.
Here, we test this possibility with the lung expression of ACE2, which
encodes the cell-entry receptor of both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2. We show
that ACE2 expression is not affected during tumorigenesis, suggesting that
the transcriptome data from the more than 1000 lung cancer samples in The
Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) can be used to study ACE2 expression among people
without cancer. The expression of ACE2 increases with age, but is not associated
with sex. Asians show a similar ACE2 expression to other races. Furthermore,
the frequencies of ACE2 alleles in Asians are not significantly deviated
from those in other races. These observations indicate that individuals
of all races need the same level of personal protection against SARS-CoV-2.
(9) Wuhan Institute of Virology reports 'Discovery of a rich gene
pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses' (Nov 2017)
Nearly all of these authors are from Wuhan Institute of Virology
(=WIV).
CAS = Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Zheng-Li Shi is listed as having the role of "Project administration,
Supervision".
Peter Daszak, an American, is listed as having the roles of "Funding
acquisition, Writing review & editing".
https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article/authors?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698
Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides
new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus
Ben Hu , Lei-Ping Zeng , Xing-Lou Yang , Xing-Yi Ge, Wei Zhang, Bei
Li, Jia-Zheng Xie, Xu-Rui Shen, Yun-Zhi Zhang, Ning Wang, Dong-Sheng Luo,
Xiao-Shuang Zheng, Mei-Niang Wang, [ ... ], Zheng-Li Shi [ view all ]
Published: PLOS | Public Library of Science
November 30, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698
About the Authors
Ben Hu Contributed equally to this work with: Ben Hu, Lei-Ping Zeng,
Xing-Lou Yang
ROLES Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Validation, Visualization,
Writing original draft AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of Special
Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wuhan
Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Lei-Ping Zeng Contributed equally to this work with: Ben Hu, Lei-Ping
Zeng, Xing-Lou Yang
ROLES Investigation, Methodology AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of Special
Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wuhan
Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Xing-Lou Yang Contributed equally to this work with: Ben Hu, Lei-Ping
Zeng, Xing-Lou Yang
ROLES Investigation, Resources AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of Special
Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wuhan
Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Xing-Yi Ge ROLES Formal analysis, Resources AFFILIATION CAS Key
Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious
Diseases of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan,
China
Wei Zhang ROLES Investigation AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of Special
Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wuhan
Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Bei Li ROLES Investigation AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of Special
Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wuhan
Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Jia-Zheng Xie ROLES Investigation AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of
Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases
of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Xu-Rui Shen ROLES Investigation AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of Special
Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wuhan
Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Yun-Zhi Zhang ROLES Resources AFFILIATIONS Yunnan Institute of Endemic
Diseases Control and Prevention, Dali, China, Dali University, Dali, China
Ning Wang ROLES Investigation AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of Special
Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wuhan
Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Dong-Sheng Luo ROLES Investigation, Resources AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory
of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases
of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Xiao-Shuang Zheng ROLES Investigation AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory
of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases
of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Mei-Niang Wang ROLES Resources AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of Special
Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wuhan
Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Peter Daszak ROLES Funding acquisition, Writing review
& editing AFFILIATION EcoHealth Alliance, New York, New York, United
States of America
Lin-Fa Wang ROLES Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing
review & editing AFFILIATION Programme in Emerging Infectious Diseases,
Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore
Jie Cui ROLES Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition,
Software, Writing review & editing * E-mail: jiecui@wh.iov.cn
(JC); zlshi@wh.iov.cn (Z-LS) AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of Special
Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wuhan
Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Zheng-Li Shi ROLES Conceptualization, Funding acquisition,
Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Visualization,
Writing review & editing * E-mail: jiecui@wh.iov.cn (JC); zlshi@wh.iov.cn
(Z-LS) AFFILIATION CAS Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety,
Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wuhan Institute of Virology,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
Competing Interests The authors have declared that no competing interests
exist.
(10) Professor Shi Zhengli is Director of the P4 lab at Wuhan Institute
of Virology
Her photo is at http://archive.is/QIBmE/e4db79e76096564291cea980219a2b374e760304.jpg.
http://english.whiov.cas.cn/ne/201903/t20190308_206697.html
Prof. SHI Zhengli elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology
Date 08-03-2019
On Jan 28, the American Academy of Microbiology elected 109 new Fellows
in 2019. The "Class of 2019" represents fellows from China, the
U.S., France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Israel, Korea, and etc. Prof. SHI
Zhengli from Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS) has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.
Prof. SHI is the Director of the Center of Emerging Infectious Diseases
at WIV, Director of the Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety
of CAS, and the Editor-in-Chief of Virologica Sinica. She received her
Ph.D from Montpellier University II, France, in 2000.
Her researches focus on molecular epidemiology and interspecies infection
mechanism of emerging viruses of zoonotic origin especially those from
bats. She has made distinguished and pioneering achievement in discovery
and characterization of important bat-borne viruses. She identified the
bat origin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and has made crucial
contributions to prevention and control of zoonotic emerging infectious
disease in China. She had got over 120 publications including research
articles on high-impact journals Science, Nature, Cell Host & Microbe,
PLoS Pathogens, etc. She won the first prize of Natural Science Award of
Hubei Province in 2017 and the second prize of National Natural Science
Award in 2018.
(11) Chinese patent for coronavirus S gene (2004)
https://patents.google.com/patent/CN1276777C/en?q=pshuttle-SN&oq=pshuttle-SN
SARS vaccine of adenovirus vector and preparation method, application
of coronavirus S gene
Application number CN 200410044285
Filing date 2004-05-18 Publication date 2006-09-27
Abstract
translated from Chinese
The present invention belongs to the field of genetic engineering,
particularly relates to adenoviral vector SARS vaccines, their preparation
and coronavirus S genes in SARS (SARS) on vaccines for the prophylaxis.
By means of biological engineering, the coronavirus S gene in combination
with deficient recombinant adenovirus, the protective immunogen protein
or polypeptide expressed therein, through expansion culture, purification,
and formulation to prepare a mucosal immunogenicity can cause the gene
vaccine, respiratory mucosal immune response induced by the body to produce
antibodies against the virus infection. Specific conditions of the present
invention, compared with conventional inactivated virus particle vaccine,
safe, easy to use, without limitation intramuscular, have broad clinical
applications.
III. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A first object of the present invention is to provide adenoviral vaccine
can prevent SARS epidemic "SARS", the better to prevent "SARS"
the occurrence and spread; a further object of the present invention to
provide a using as deficient adenoviral vector, by cloning, recombinant
and other means, adenoviral vector disclosed SARS vaccine preparation and
use of vaccines SARS-associated coronavirus S gene in the manufacture.
Object of the present invention is achieved: by means of biological
engineering, the S gene of SARS-associated coronavirus (CoV total of four
structural gene, wherein one of the S gene, see detailed description below)
in combination with deficient recombinant adenovirus, constitute a gene
vaccine can cause mucosal immunogenicity.
(12) Chinese Patent genetic engineering protein FSPA relevant to
S protein of coronavirus SARS- CoV (2005)
http://europepmc.org/article/pat/CN1990502
Coronal virus genetic engineering protein and use thereof
XU JINPING MENG
Patent: Unexamined APPLIC. open to Public inspection - China
Application: CN20051120530 on 27 Dec 2005
Publication: 27 Dec 2005
PAT: CN1990502
Patent
Abstract
The invention discloses a genetic engineering protein of coronavirus
and its application. That is genetic engineering protein FSPA relevant
to S protein of coronavirus SARS- CoV and nucleotide sequences amnio
sequence and code said FSPA. The invention also discloses a recombinant
insect virus strain containing SARS- CoV Spike- recombinant autographa
californica nucleopolyhe-drovirus AcNPV- FSPA, CCTCC No.V200513, inserts
into the expression box of SARS- CoV Spike. The inventiton also discloses
the application of FSPA in checking the coronavirus SARS- CoV, which is
the pathogen for acute respiratory syndrome.
(13) Scientific Puzzles surrounding the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus
https://www.theepochtimes.com/scientific-puzzles-surrounding-the-wuhan-novel-coronavirus_3225405.html
BY YUHONG DONG
February 3, 2020 Updated: February 3, 2020
The sudden outbreak of the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has resulted
in all of China's Hubei Province and three major cities in Zhejiang Province
being subjected to quarantine. Other nations are anxiously trying to get
their people out of China, and restrictions are being placed on flights
to China. Because this novel virus has an extremely high transmission speed
(high R0) and a high fatality rate, it is posing a significant challenge
to public health, not only in China, but around the world.
There are major gaps in our knowledge of the virus's origin, duration
of human-to-human transmission, and clinical management of those infected
based on the current limited information coming from China. Nevertheless,
the findings of those scientists who have recently published research papers
about this virus are summarized below.
Lancet Article Reports Wuhan Virus Not Likely Caused by Natural Recombination
Most papers reported that the 2019-nCoV is only 88 percent related
to the closest bat coronavirus, only 79 percent to SARS, and just 50 percent
to MERS. Professor Roujian Lu from the China Key Laboratory of Biosafety,
National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center
for Disease Control and Prevention, and his co-authors commented in a Jan.
30 paper in Lancet that "recombination is probably not the reason
for emergence of this virus."
A Jan. 27 2020, study by 5 Greek scientists analyzed the genetic relationships
of 2019-nCoV and found that "the new coronavirus provides a new
lineage for almost half of its genome, with no close genetic relationships
to other viruses within the subgenus of sarbecovirus," and has
an unusual middle segment never seen before in any coronavirus.
All this indicates that 2019-nCoV is a brand new type of coronavirus.
The study's authors rejected the original hypothesis that 2019-nCoV
originated from random natural mutations between different coronaviruses.
(Paraskevis et al 2020 BioRxiv) The article is a preprint made available
through bioRxiv and has not been peer-reviewed.
Puzzles of the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus (Yuhong Dong)
Very High Genetic Identity in Patients Indicates a Recent Transmission
to Humans
2019-nCoV is an RNA virus. RNA viruses have high natural mutation
rates. The Lancet study by Lu et al. states: "As a typical RNA
virus, the average evolutionary rate for coronaviruses is roughly 10-4
nucleotide substitutions per site per year, with mutations arising during
every replication cycle. It is, therefore, striking that the sequences
of 2019-nCoV from different patients described here were almost identical,
with greater than 99.9% sequence identity. This finding suggests that 2019-nCoV
originated from one source within a very short period and detected relatively
rapidly."
A Jan. 31 article by Jon Cohen in Science said: "The longer
a virus circulates in a human population, the more time it has to develop
mutations that differentiate strains in infected people, and given
that the 2019-nCoV sequences analyzed to date differ from each other by
seven nucleotides at most, this suggests it jumped into humans very recently.
But it remains a mystery which animal spread the virus to humans."
Bat or Huanan Market Source Is Not the Whole Story
Prof. Lu et. al. also discussed the natural host of the virus. An early
hypothesis had been the virus had passed to humans from bats sold at Wuhan's
Huanan Seafood Market.
Lu et. al write: "First, the outbreak was first reported in
late December 2019, when most bat species in Wuhan are hibernating.
Second, no bats were sold or found at the Huanan seafood market,
whereas various non-aquatic animals (including mammals) were available
for purchase. Third, the sequence identity between 2019-nCoV and its close
relatives bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21 was less than 90%. Hence,
bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21 are not direct ancestors of 2019-nCoV."
The authors point out that while the 2019-nCoV causing the Wuhan outbreak
might have initially been hosted by bats, it may have been transmitted
to humans via other as yet unknown mechanisms.
The Science article said: "Huanan marketplace played an early role
in spreading 2019-nCoV, but whether it was the origin of the outbreak remains
uncertain. Many of the initially confirmed 2019-nCoV cases- 27 of
the first 41 in one report, 26 of 47 in another- were connected to the
Wuhan market, but up to 45%, including the earliest handful, were
not. This raises the possibility that the initial jump into people
happened elsewhere." [...]
On Jan. 22, 2020, two clinical guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment
of Wuhan 2019-nCoV were posted on China websites. One is "Quick Guide
for the Diagnosis and Treatment of New Coronavirus Pneumonia" authored
by the expert group of Tongji Hospital, and the other is "Instructions
for Handling 2019 New Coronavirus" from the Wuhan Union Hospital of
Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
The first guideline clearly points out a "progressive lymphocyte
reduction" while the second guideline highlights "the importance
of monitoring the absolute value of lymphocytes." (emphasis added)
Therefore, the observed lymphocyte reduction must be of clinical significance
in a certain proportion of patients. CD4 positive T lymphocytes constitute
a major fraction of all lymphocytes. Although not a routine test for patients
with coronavirus infection, perhaps monitoring CD4 cell counts would be
helpful in 2019-nCoV patients.
Another clinical feature of patients infected with 2019-nCoV is the
high levels of serum cytokines and chemokines, which is defined as a cytokine
storm (Huang et al 2020 Lancet). This is consistent with the observation
from Pradhan et al. that the 2019-nCoV S-protein inducing structural rearrangements
in GP120, creating a high affinity binding site for a chemokine co-receptor
such as CXCR4 and/or CCR5. It is well known that activating T cell surface
receptors can cause a cytokine storm. Cytokine storms have potential to
create significant damage to organs and bodily tissues. If a cytokine storm
occurs in the lungs, for example, immune cells such as macrophages and
fluid may trigger tissue damage that results in acute respiratory distress
and possible death.
The United States Centers for Disease Control stated: "There is
no specific antiviral treatment recommended for 2019-nCoV infection."
But, there are a few case reports of Wuhan 2019-nCoV patients benefiting
from empiric treatment with anti-HIV drugs such as lopinavir. More such
detailed clinical experience needs to be shared.
Conclusion
There are many scientific questions regarding this novel virus. Based
on recently published scientific papers, this new coronavirus has unprecedented
virologic features that suggest genetic engineering may have been involved
in its creation. The virus presents with severe clinical features, which
make it a significant threat. It is imperative for scientists, physicians,
and people all over the world, including governments and public health
authorities, to make every effort to investigate this mysterious and suspicious
virus in order to elucidate its origin and to better enable populations
in China and around the world to respond.
Yuhong Dong holds a M.D. from Beijing Medical University and a doctorate
in infectious diseases from Beijing University. Dong has 17 years of working
experience in viral infectious disease clinical treatment and antiviral
drug research. Dong worked as a doctor in the First Affiliated Hospital
of Beijing Medical University and then later as a Medical Scientific Expert
specialized in antiviral drug clinical research in Novartis R&D. She
currently works as a Chief Scientific Officer in a Swiss Biotech company.
References {visit link}
(14) 2019-nCoV Virus was probably an experimental vaccine, accidentally
released - James Lyons-Weiler
https://jameslyonsweiler.com/2020/01/30/on-the-origins-of-the-2019-ncov-virus-wuhan-china/
also at https://principia-scientific.org/on-the-origins-of-the-2019-ncov-virus-wuhan-china/
On the Origins of the 2019-nCoV Virus, Wuhan, China
jameslyonsweiler
January 30, 2020
Moderately Strong Confirmation of a Laboratory Origin of 2019-nCoV James
Lyons-Weiler, PhD
RECOMBINATION technology has been in use in molecular virology since
the 1980's. The structure of the 2019-NCoV virus genome provides a very
strong clue on the likely origin of the virus.
Unlike other related coronaviruses, the 2019-nCoV virus has a unique
sequence about 1,378 bp (nucleotide base pairs) long that is not
found in related coronaviruses.
Looking at the phylogenetic tree recently published derived using all
the full genome sequence, we see the 2019-nCoV virus does not have clear
monophyletic support given the bootstrap value of 75 (Fig 1).
[...] The gap in the line shows a lack of sequence homology beween the
most similar bat coronavirus and 2019-nCoV. The inserted sequence, which
should not be there is here {visit link}
Here, I review four Option on the origins of the 2019-nCoV Coronavirus
isolated from human patients from Wuhan, China.
Option 1. Natural coronavirus related to bat coronaviruses,
Not a Recombined Virus.
Evidence for: Phylogenetic clustering with Bat coronaviruses.
Evidence against: Low bootstrap support (N=75) and presence of a INS1378.
Status: Falsified hypothesis.
Test: Survey coronviruses in animals in the wild.
Option 2. A recombined virus that naturally picked up a SARS-like
spike protein in it N-terminus (3¢ end) of the viral genome.
Evidence for: The INS1378 codon bias similar to snakes ($)
Evidence against: Insufficient match in database search to other
known CoV spike proteins (Ji et al., 2020)
Status: Speculative hypothesis. Unlikely.
Test: Find an isolate that matches 2019-nCoV in the wild and reproducibly
independently isolate the virus from a wild animal (a match will confirm).
Option 3. A recombined virus made in a laboratory for the purpose
of creating a bioweapon.
Both China and the US hinted at the other side's potential liability
in playing a role in bringing about a novel coronavirus in the lab specifically
for the purpose of being used as a bioweapon. To add to the intrigue, a
Chinese Scientist was released from BSL-4 laboratory in Manitoba, Canada
for violating protocols, allegedly sending samples of deadly viruses to
mainland China.
On January 26, The Washington Times published this article citing an
Israeli defense expert claiming that China has likely proceeded with a
bioweapons program, but ending the article with a quote to London's Daily
Mail from a US scientist Rutgers University microbiologist Richard Ebright
that "at this point there's no reason to harbor suspicions" that
the lab may be linked to the virus outbreak.
The same person was quoted in a Feb 2017 Nature article stating that
SARS had escaped the Wuhan a facility in Beijing (corrected 2/2/2020) "multiple
times".
Evidence for: Presence of BSL-4 laboratory 20 miles from the Wuhan seafood
market
Evidence against: Published opinion.
Status: Rumor. But see below.
Option 4. A recombined virus made in a laboratory for the purpose
of creating a vaccine.
IPAK researchers found a sequence similarity between a pShuttle-SN recombination
vector sequence and INS1378. Here's a shot of the alignment and the DOT
Plot.
Here's the nucleotide sequence at NCBI's Nucleotide database. Here's
a patent for its use in recombination virology.
The pShuttle-SN vector was among many described in a 1998 paper by Bert
Vogelstein et al; here is a company where one can purchase the pShuttle-SN
vector:
It turns out that the sequence from pShuttle is most closely related
to the Spike protein from SARS coronavirus.
This particular technology was used in 2008 to attempt to develop
a more immunogenic vaccine against coronavirus. Here's a Chinese patent
for that technique and product intended for use in a vaccine.
The patent summary reads:
SARS vaccine of adenovirus vector and preparation method, application
of coronavirus S gene Abstract (translated from Chinese) The present invention
belongs to the field of genetic engineering, particularly relates to adenoviral
vector SARS vaccines, their preparation and coronavirus S genes in SARS
(SARS) on vaccines for the prophylaxis. By means of biological engineering,
the coronavirus S gene in combination with deficient recombinant adenovirus,
the protective immunogen protein or polypeptide expressed therein, through
expansion culture, purification, and formulation to prepare a mucosal immunogenicity
can cause the gene vaccine, respiratory mucosal immune response induced
by the body to produce antibodies against the virus infection. Specific
conditions of the present invention, compared with conventional inactivated
virus particle vaccine, safe, easy to use, without limitation intramuscular,
have broad clinical applications.
In 2015, The US called for an end to research creating new viruses
in the lab that have increased threat (higher transmissibility, higher
pathogenicity, higher lethalithy) (3)
The disease progression in of 2019-nCoV is consistent with those
seen in animals and humans vaccinated against SARS and then challenged
with re-infection. Thus, the hypothesis that 2019-nCoV is an experimental
vaccine type must be seriously considered.
Evidence for: Sequence homology between INS1378 to pShuttle Coronavirus
vaccine; presence of a SARS-like Spike protein in bat coronavirus, otherwise
most similar to bat coronaviruses; low bootstrap value.
Evidence against: Low sequence homology (but highly signifiant).
NB these viruses are RNA viruses and they can evolve quickly, even under
laboratory conditions.
Status: Most likely.
Test: Determine the nucleotide sequence all laboratory types of coronavirus
being studied in China (a match will confirm). Find an isolate that matches
2019-nCoV in the wild and reproducibly independently isolate the virus
from a wild animal (a match will falsify).
The available evidence most strongly supports that the 2019-NCoV
virus is a vaccine strain of coronavirus either accidentally released
from a laboratory accident, perhaps a laboratory researcher becoming
infected with the virus while conducting animal experiments, or the
Chinese were performing clinical studies of a Coronavirus vaccine in
humans.
Dr. Dale Brown brought to my attention the studies that have reported
serious immunopathology in animals rats, ferrets, and monkeys
in which animals vaccinated against coronoviruses tended to have extremely
high rates of respiratory failure upon subsequent exposure in the study
when challenged with the wild-type coronavirus.
"Caution in proceeding to application of a SARS-CoV vaccine in
humans is indicated"- Te et al., 2012 [Full Text] Yasui et al., (2012)
reported severe pneumonia in mice who were vaccinated against SARS who
were subsequently infected with SARS.
Another study of a double-inactived SARS vaccine found increased eosinophilic
proinflammatory responses in vaccinated mice, especially older mice, writing:
"Importantly, aged animals displayed increased eosinophilic immune
pathology in the lungs and were not protected against significant virus
replication."
If the Chinese government has been conducting human trials against SARS,
MERS, or other coronviruses using recombined viruses, they may have made
their citizens far more susceptible to acute respiratory distress syndrome
upon infection with 2019-nCoV coronavirus.
The implications are clear: if China sensitized their population via
a SARS vaccine, and this escaped from a lab, the rest of world has a serious
humanitarian urgency to help China, but may not expect as serious an epidemic
as might otherwise be expected.
In the worst-case scenario, if the vaccination strain is more highly
contagious and lethal, 2019-nCoV could become the worst example of vaccine-derived
contagious disease in human history. With an uncharacteristic aysmptomatic
prodromal period of 5-7 days, individuals returning from China to other
countries must be forthright and cooperative in their now-prescribed 2-week
quarantine.
Citations
Lu, R et al., 2020. Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019
novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding
The Lancet. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2820%2930251-8/fulltext
Tseng et al., 2012. Double-Inactivated Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
Coronavirus Vaccine Provides Incomplete Protection in Mice and Induces
Increased Eosinophilic Proinflammatory Pulmonary Response Upon Challenge
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3209347/
Te et al., 2012. Immunization with SARS coronavirus vaccines leads to
pulmonary immunopathology on challenge with the SARS virus. PLoS One 7(4)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22536382
Yasui et al., Prior immunization with severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS)-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) nucleocapsid protein causes severe
pneumonia in mice infected with SARS-CoV. J Immunol. 181:6337-48 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18941225
https://www.jimmunol.org/content/181/9/6337.long
Dr. Lyons-Weiler is a research scientist and author of three books,
the latest of which is "The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism".
He is available for speaking engagements and book signing events at your
location. To contact, follow on twitter @lifebiomedguru, email ebolapromo[at]gmail.com,
and connect via LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameslyonsweiler
(15) Chinese Canadian Virologist, involved in espionage, made 5 trips
to China in 2017-18, & trained scientists at Wuhan lab
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/national-microbiology-lab-scientist-investigation-china-1.5307424
Canadian government scientist under investigation trained staff at Level
4 lab in China
Still no answers in probe of government scientists expelled from National
Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg
Karen Pauls · CBC News
Posted: Oct 03, 2019 2:57 PM CT | Last Updated: October 4, 2019
Xiangguo Qiu, her biologist husband and her students have not returned
to work at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, after being escorted
out in July. RCMP are still investigating what was described by Public
Health Agency of Canada as a possible 'policy breach.' (CBC)
This story was published on Oct. 3, 2019.
A Canadian government scientist at the National Microbiology Lab in
Winnipeg made at least five trips to China in 2017-18, including one
to train scientists and technicians at China's newly certified Level 4
lab, which does research with the most deadly pathogens, according
to travel documents obtained by CBC News.
Xiangguo Qiu - who was escorted out of the Winnipeg lab in July amid
an RCMP investigation into what's being described by Public Health Agency
of Canada as a possible "policy breach" - was invited to go to
the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
twice a year for two years, for up to two weeks each time.
"This will be third-party funded, and therefore no cost to [the
Public Health Agency of Canada]," say the documents, obtained through
access to information requests. The identity of the third-party was redacted.
During a Sept. 19-30, 2017, trip, she also met with collaborators in
Beijing, the documents say, but their names have also been blacked out.
Qiu, her husband Keding Cheng and her students from China were removed
on July 5 from Canada's only Level 4 lab - one equipped to work with the
most serious and deadly human and animal diseases, such as Ebola. Security
access for the couple and the Chinese students was revoked, sources who
work at the lab previously told CBC News.
People working inside the lab told CBC News this week they have heard
the couple may return to work soon.
Ouster of researchers from National Microbiology Lab still a mystery
Several of them, who asked not to be identified for fears of retribution,
say there have always been questions about Qiu's trips to China - and what
information and technology she was sharing with researchers there.
"It's not right that she's a Canadian government employee providing
details of top-secret work and know-how to set up a high-containment lab
for a foreign nation," one employee said.
The staff member claims RCMP officers have not yet interviewed key people
at the lab, because senior management has not made them accessible to police
or allowed staff to contact them with relevant information.
A spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Canada, which runs the
lab, referred questions to the RCMP.
"We encourage anyone who has information and wishes to speak with
the RCMP on this matter to attend RCMP HQ in Winnipeg at 1091 Portage Avenue,"
RCMP said in an emailed statement.
"In order to maintain the integrity of the investigative process,
we have no further comment at this time."
A spokesperson confirms the police investigation is ongoing. Both agencies
have said repeatedly there is no threat to public safety.
Researchers must balance caution, collaboration Meanwhile, there has
been no change in Qiu and Cheng's status at the University of Manitoba,
which had severed ties with both of them and reassigned her students in
July.
Qiu is a medical doctor and virologist who helped develop ZMapp - a
treatment for the deadly Ebola virus, which killed more than 11,000 people
in West Africa between 2014-2016 and saw an outbreak in Congo earlier this
year.
She is a medical doctor from Tianjin, China, who came to Canada for
graduate studies in 1996. She is still affiliated with the university there
and has brought in many students over the years to help with her work.
During her trips, Qiu also visited the Chinese Academy of Science,
Tsinghua University, the Chinese Medical Academy of Science and Bejing
Institute of Biotechnology.
She spoke at several conferences, including some organized by the World
Health Organization, the Chinese Society of Virology and International
Symposium on Emerging Viral Disease.
Collaboration and information-sharing is common and expected in academia,
says Jia Wang, deputy director of the China Institute at the University
of Alberta in Edmonton.
"In an increasingly globalized world, in an increasingly globalized
field of research, we do see more exchanges and more visits incoming and
outgoing," she said.
But researchers working with international partners also "need
to understand the security parameters and the requirements to follow the
procedures, and to safeguard intellectual property and also safeguard their
research," she said.
There's a balance they need to strike between being cautious and open-minded
to collaboration, though, Wang said.
"In the end, we are hoping that this research exchange will ultimately
benefit Canada and benefit our people here."
Qiu and Cheng have not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Relations between Canada and China have been strained since the detention
last year of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. arrest warrant.
(16) China and Viruses: Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and illegal Shipments from
Winnipeg to China
https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/china-biological-warfare/
China and Viruses: The Case of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu
By Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham
January 29, 2020
Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, photo via Twitter feed of Public Policy Forum
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,429, January 29, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In July 2019, a rare event occurred in Canada. Suspected
of espionage for China, a group of Chinese virologists was forcibly evicted
from the Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg,
where they had been running parts of the Special Pathogen Program of
Canada's public health agency. One of the procedures conducted by the
team was the infection of monkeys with the most lethal viruses found on
Earth. Four months prior to the Chinese team's eviction, a shipment containing
two exceptionally virulent viruses- Ebola and Nipah- was sent from the
NML to China. When the shipment was traced, it was held to be improper
and a "possible policy breach."
The scope of the 2019 incident involving the discovery of a possibly
serious security breach at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory (NML)
in Winnipeg is much broader than the group of Chinese virologists who were
summarily evicted from the lab. The main culprit behind the breach seems
to have been Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, an outstanding Chinese scientist born in
Tianjin.
Until recently the head of the Vaccine Development and Antiviral
Therapies section of the Special Pathogens Program, Qiu received her
MD degree from Hebei Medical University in China in 1985 and came to Canada
for graduate studies in 1996. She was later affiliated with the Institute
of Cell Biology and the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at the
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. She was not engaged in the study of pathogens
while at that institute.
But a shift took place in Qiu's research work. Ever since 2006, she
has been studying powerful viruses - Ebola most of all - at the
NML. Both of the viruses that were surreptitiously shipped from the
NML to China were studied by Qiu in 2014 (as well as other viruses,
including Machupo, Junin, Rift Valley Fever, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic
Fever, and Hendra). But she paid greatest attention to Ebola for
the entirely legitimate aim of developing effective prophylaxis and treatment
for the infected.
Inevitably, Qiu's work included a variety of Ebola wild strains -
among them the most virulent, which has an 80% lethality rate- and
relied heavily on experimental infection of monkeys, including via the
airways. She made remarkable strides, and was granted the Governor General's
Innovation Award in 2018.
So far so good- or so it seems.
Qiu is married to Chinese scientist Keding Cheng, a bacteriologist who
shifted to virology and who is also affiliated with the NML. Qiu maintains
a close bond with China and visits frequently, and many Chinese students
from a notable range of Chinese scientific facilities have joined her
at the NML over the past decade.
Of those facilities, four are believed to be involved in Chinese
biological weapons development. They are:
Institute of Military Veterinary, Academy of Military Medical Sciences,
Changchun
Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Chengdu Military Region
Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hubei
Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
All four facilities collaborated with Qiu on her Ebola research. The
Institute of Military Veterinary also joined a study on the Rift Valley
fever virus, while the Institute of Microbiology joined a study on the
Marburg virus. Notably, the drug used in the latter study- Favipiravir-
has been successfully tested by the Chinese Academy of Military Medical
Sciences against Ebola and other viruses. (The drug has the designation
JK-05; it is originally a Japanese patent registered in China in 2006.)
The Chinese interest in Ebola, Nipah, Marburg, and Rift Valley fever
might possibly be beyond scientific and medical needs. Significantly, only
the Nipah virus is naturally found in China or neighboring countries. That
being the case, the interface between Qiu and China is a priori highly
suspicious.
The shipment of the two viruses from NML to China is alarming unto itself,
but it also raises the question of what other shipments of viruses or
other items might have been made to China between 2006 and 2018.
Qiu made at least five trips over the academic year 2017-18 alone to
the above-mentioned Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences, which was certified for BSL4 in January 2017. In August
2017, the National Health Commission of China approved research activities
involving the Ebola, Nipah, and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever viruses
at the Wuhan facility, and in March 2019, the Chinese published their tour
de force.
When the shipment from Canada was uncovered, security access was
revoked for Qiu, her husband, and the Chinese students. IT specialists
entered Qiu's office after hours to gain access to her computer, and her
regular trips to China were halted.
Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of NATO, said at a news conference
that he can't comment on the case, but appeared to suggest the possibility
of espionage. "What I can say in general is that we have seen increased
efforts by the nations to spy on NATO allies in different ways," he
said.
Qiu's research has not only been conducted on behalf of Canada and China.
In 2018, she collaborated with three scientists from the US Army Medical
Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Maryland, studying post-exposure
immunotherapy for two Ebola viruses and Marburg virus in monkeys. Those
activities were part of a study supported by the US Defense Threat Reduction
Agency.
The multiplicity of Chinese grants, all on the national level, supporting
the work done under Qiu's lead at the NML is impressive:
National Key Program for Infectious Disease of China National Key Research
and Development Program of China National Natural Science Foundation of
China International Cooperation and Exchange Program Special Foundation
of President for Ebola virus research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences
President's International Fellowship Initiative from the Chinese Academy
of Sciences China National Key Subject of Drug Innovation Youth Innovation
Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences National Natural
Science Foundation Award, Ministry of Science and Technology National Science
and Technology Major Projects Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structure
Biology Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
It is still possible that Qiu and her husband will return to work at the
NML, but a good deal of intelligence analysis and assessment will be required.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has a serious challenge on its
hands.
This is an edited version of an article published in the July-December
2019 issue of the IDSA periodical CBW Magazine.
Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham, a microbiologist and an expert on chemical
and biological warfare in the Middle East, is a senior research associate
at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He is a former senior
intelligence analyst in the IDF and the Israeli Defense Ministry.
(17) China bribed Harvard Chemistry Head in espionage case; 2 of
his staff tried to smuggle biological materials to Wuhan
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/harvard-chemistry-chair-2-chinese-nationals-arrested-lying-about-china-ties-smuggling
Harvard Chemistry Chair & Two Chinese Nationals Arrested For Lying
About China Ties, Smuggling "Biological Material"
by Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/28/2020 - 13:19
Will this Harvard Chemistry Department Head be remembered as the Aldrich
Ames of the modern-day 'Cold War'?
In a shocking revelation made Tuesday afternoon - a revelation that
will almost certainly rattle the US-China relationship at an already fragile
time - a federal court unsealed indictments against Harvard professor
and Chemistry Department Head Charles Lieber, along with two Chinese nationals.
One is a Boston University researcher who was once a lieutenant in the
People's Liberation Army, according to prosecutors, and the second was
a cancer researcher who tried to smuggle 21 vials of biological materials
in his sock - allegedly. Lieber has been arrested, though it's not
clear if he's still in custody.
Though the official charge was lying to investigators, Lieber's actions
look like an unvarnished attempt at espionage, complete with an extremely
seductive monetary reward.
Lieber was reportedly paid $50,000 a month by Wuhan University of
Technology for participating in its "Thousand Talents" program,
and was given more than $1.5 million to establish a lab and do research
at Wuhan University of Technology, according to federal prosecutors
in Boston, according to WSJ.
According to prosecutors, Lieber deliberately lied to defense department
officials about his "foreign research collaborations."
When Defense Department investigators asked Mr. Lieber in 2018 about
his foreign research collaborations, he told them he had never been
asked to participate in the Thousand Talents Program, the complaint
said. But Mr. Lieber had signed such a talent contract with Wuhan University
in 2012, the complaint said.
NIH also asked Harvard about Mr. Lieber's affiliation with Wuhan that
same year, the complaint said. After interviewing Mr. Lieber, Harvard told
NIH in January 2019 that Mr. Lieber had no formal affiliation with Wuhan
after 2012 and that he had never participated in the Thousand Talents Program,
even though Mr. Lieber had a formal relationship with the university through
2017, the complaint said.
In conjunction with the program, Mr. Lieber became a "strategic
scientist" at Wuhan University of Technology, according to the complaint.
For "significant periods" from 2012 to 2017, his contract
called for a $50,000 a month salary on top of $150,000 in living expenses
paid by WUT, it said. He was also awarded more than $1.5 million by
WUT and the Chinese government to set up a research lab, it said.
"The charges brought by the U.S. government against Professor Lieber
are extremely serious," a Harvard spokesman said Tuesday. "Harvard
is cooperating with federal authorities, including the National Institutes
of Health, and is initiating its own review of the alleged misconduct.
Professor Lieber has been placed on indefinite administrative leave."
The Trump Administration has made cracking down on Chinese academic
and corporate espionage a priority, and has made several arrests of
Chinese nationals working in critical roles funneling info back to China.
But this is probably the most high-profile case to date, since one of the
suspects is a pioneering American scientist.
Interestingly enough, not long after news of the arrests hit the press,
another report surfaced claiming China had rejected President Trump's offer
of assistance to contain the coronavirus - even as Wuhan is in desperate
need of supplies.
Is that just a coincidence?
(18) Nanoscientist Charles Lieber lied about his involvement in China's
Thousand Talents Plan
https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvards-chemistry-chair-charged-on-alleged-undisclosed-ties-to-china-11580228768
Harvard Chemistry Chairman Charged on Alleged Undisclosed Ties to China
Charles Lieber is accused of lying to Defense Department, National Institutes
of Health about Chinese government funding
{photo} Charles Lieber attended an awards ceremony in Jerusalem in 2012.
PHOTO: MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/GETTYIMAGES
By Aruna Viswanatha and Kate O'Keeffe
Updated Jan. 28, 2020 9:25 pm ET
The chairman of Harvard University's chemistry department was arrested
on charges of lying about receiving millions of dollars in Chinese funding,
in an escalation of U.S. efforts to counter what officials said is a plot
by Beijing to mine U.S. universities to catapult China to the forefront
of scientific development.
A federal criminal complaint alleges that Charles Lieber, a pioneer
in nanotechnology, misled the Defense Department and the National Institutes
of Health about his participation in China's Thousand Talents Plan while
the U.S. agencies were spending more than $15 million to fund his research
group in the U.S.
Through its government-backed Thousand Talents Plan and hundreds of
similar programs, China pays scientists around the world to moonlight
at Chinese institutions, often without disclosing the work to their primary
employers.
The case was one of three presented Tuesday by federal authorities in
Massachusetts, with each underscoring U.S. concerns that the Chinese government
is trying to obtain cutting-edge U.S. research by exploiting U.S. universities
and their professors and researchers. Prosecutors have brought a series
of cases charging Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals working in the
U.S., prompting concern in the scientific community that authorities were
racially profiling people. Mr. Lieber is among the first non-Chinese scientists
and highest-profile targets to date.
As part of the Thousand Talents program, Wuhan University of Technology
gave Mr. Lieber more than $1.5 million to set up a research lab in
China, according to the complaint.
The school also agreed to pay him a $50,000 monthly salary and offered
about $150,000 in annual living expenses for "significant periods"
from 2012 to 2017, it said.
In exchange, Mr. Lieber was required to work for WUT at least
nine months a year by "declaring international cooperation
projects, cultivating young teachers and Ph.D. students, organizing
international conference[s], applying for patents and publishing
articles in the name of" the Chinese school, the complaint said.
While accepting foreign funding isn't illegal, U.S. authorities require
such funds to be disclosed by researchers who apply for U.S. taxpayer-supported
funding; U.S. officials said the Chinese programs create conflicts of interest
and incentives to transfer intellectual property. Under a contract cited
in the complaint, Mr. Lieber was obligated to "conduct national important
(key) projects...that meet China's national strategic development requirements
or stand at the forefront of international science and technology research
field."
Mr. Lieber, 60 years old, appeared in court Tuesday and was remanded
to federal custody pending a detention hearing set for Thursday.
In a separate indictment unsealed Tuesday, a researcher at Boston University
was charged with acting as a Chinese government agent and failing to disclose
that she was a lieutenant in the Chinese military when she applied for
her visa.
Prosecutors also discussed the indictment last week of a Harvard-sponsored
researcher accused of trying to smuggle biological research back to
China.
"Chemistry, nanotechnology, polymer studies, robotics, computer
science, biomedical research- this is not an accident or a coincidence,"
said Andrew Lelling, the top federal prosecutor in Boston, referring to
the science at issue in the cases. "This is a small sample of China's
ongoing campaign to siphon off American technology and know-how for Chinese
gain."
Mr. Lieber, who has been at Harvard since 1991, has been placed on administrative
leave, and neither he nor his lawyer could be reached to comment.
His work helped develop "bio-nanoelectronic sensors capable
of detecting diseases down to the level of a single infectious virus particle,"
according to a citation from the Welch Foundation, which funds chemical
research and recognized his work last year.
On his Lieber Research Group's website, Mr. Lieber says he is developing
a mesh to be injected through a syringe into parts of the brain to better
understand how the brain works and to treat disease and brain injury. The
long-term goal is to enhance "human performance via brain-machine
interface." [...]
U.S. officials have described what they view as a shift in Chinese
intelligence priorities, moving from gathering broad swaths of expertise
overseas to seeking specific pieces of technology that fill gaps in
research being conducted at Chinese universities and designated as priorities
by Beijing.
In the Boston University case outlined Tuesday, the researcher, Yanqing
Ye, allegedly responded to direction from colleagues in the People's
Liberation Army in China between 2017 and 2019 and researched U.S.
military websites and two U.S. scientists with expertise in robotics and
computer science.
In one April 2019 email, an unnamed co-conspirator and PLA member sent
her a message that said: "See if [we can] find projects in risk analysis
and policy sponsored by the US military by searching risk + US military
directly," the indictment said.
In an April 2019 WeChat message, she sent another unnamed co-conspirator
a pdf file from a U.S. Navy website using the "mil" domain, the
complaint said. The co-conspirator replied: "Now a days, we can't
connect to a link with mil top level domain from China...This is probably
American taking precautions against us," the person replied, according
to the complaint.
Ms. Ye, who is believed to be in China, couldn't be reached for comment.
A Boston University spokesman said Ms. Ye left the university in April
2019 and that it would assist in the investigation.
In the third case prosecutors discussed Tuesday, Zaosong Zheng, a cancer
researcher whose visa was sponsored by Harvard, was indicted last week
on charges of smuggling stolen vials of biological research. Before he
was about to board a December flight to Beijing, customs agents at Logan
International Airport found 21 vials "wrapped in plastic and hidden
in a sock," the indictment said.
When agents asked Mr. Zheng if he had any research materials in his
luggage, he said no, prosecutors alleged. He later acknowledged the vials
and admitted he was planning to take them to China and publish the research
in his own name, the indictment said. He is scheduled to be arraigned later
this week. A lawyer for Mr. Zheng said: "We are looking forward to
a jury trial so our client can be found not guilty."
The recent cases underscore the unusual nature of China's efforts, officials
said.
"While we are still confronted with traditional spies...I can tell
you China is also using what we call nontraditional collectors such as
professors, researchers, hackers and front companies," said Joseph
Bonavolonta, who runs the FBI's Boston office.
The people charged Tuesday "are manifestations of the China threat,"
he said.
Douglas Belkin contributed to this article.
(19) Lieber appeared in Boston federal court wearing orange jail
garb and chains around his ankles. Released on $1M Bond
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/harvard-professor-charged-with-hiding-china-ties-due-in-court/2069587/
Harvard Professor Charged With Hiding Ties to China Released on $1M
Bond
Charles Lieber, formerly chair of the chemistry and chemical biology
department, allegedly agreed to conduct research, publish articles and
apply for patents on behalf of China's Wuhan University of Technology in
exchange for $50,000 per month and about $150,000 in living expenses
By Alanna Durkin Richer
Published January 30, 2020
Updated on January 31, 2020 at 1:04 am NBCUniversal, Inc.
A Harvard University professor charged with lying about his role in
a Chinese talent recruitment program was released from custody Thursday
and ordered to post a $1 million cash bond.
Charles Lieber appeared in Boston's federal court wearing orange jail
garb and chains around his ankles two days after his arrest at his Ivy
League university office, where he was chair of the chemistry and chemical
biology department. [...]
Lieber is required to give up his passport and disclose any foreign
bank accounts and is barred from talking to any potential victims or witnesses
in the case, among other restrictions. His wife will also hand over her
passport after prosecutors raised concerns that she could move cash to
another country. [...]
Federal prosecutors in Boston also announced charges this week against
a researcher at Boston University, who is accused of concealing her
ties to the Chinese military. Yanqing Ye, who prosecutors say is a
lieutenant in the People's Liberation Army, lied about her military service
to get into the U.S. and researched U.S. military projects and gathered
information on two U.S. scientists for the Chinese military, authorities
allege.
The FBI on Thursday released a wanted poster for Ye, who is believed
to be in China. entific innovation. Instead, he said, he hopes this investigation
encourages a "productive dialogue."
(20) Also charged: Yanqing Ye (PLA, works at Harvard); Zaosong Zheng
(smuggled 21 vials of biological samples)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51288854
US charges three researchers with lying about links to China
28 January 2020
Harvard University described the charges as "extremely serious"
The US has charged a Harvard professor and two Chinese researchers based
in Boston with assisting the Chinese government.
Harvard department chair Charles Lieber is accused of lying about his
connections, while the researchers were charged with being foreign agents.
Mr Lieber allegedly accepted more than $1m in grant money from the
Chinese government.
Harvard University called the charges against him "extremely serious".
In a statement, the university added: "Professor Lieber has been
placed on indefinite administrative leave."
Who else was charged?
Prosecutors said Yanqing Ye, a Boston University robotics researcher,
concealed the fact that she was in the Chinese army.
Ms Ye is accused of falsely identifying herself as a student and
also continuing to work for the People's Liberation Army, while completing
a number of assignments in the US.
Cancer researcher Zaosong Zheng was arrested at Boston Logan
International Airport with 21 vials of biological samples in his bag.
Prosecutors allege he was planning to return to China to continue his research
there. [...]
(21) 'Hysteria' or 'non-traditional espionage'?
By Zhaoyin Feng, US Correspondent, BBC Chinese
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51288854
China says its Thousand Talents Plan is designed to keep "high-end
talent" at home, in order to prevent a brain drain. The country has
been losing talent to places like the US and the UK, where hundreds of
thousands of Chinese attend top universities and subsequently settle down.
But the US view is that China is repeating a notorious tactic in its
development playbook: intellectual property theft. For decades, Washington
has accused Beijing of stealing science and technology from the US in order
to gain an competitive advantage.
The FBI warns that the Thousand Talents Plan could be used by Beijing
as a channel to conduct "non-traditional espionage", though
many reported cases are not related to spying, but violations of ethics,
such as not fully disclosing financial conflicts of interest.
Washington has increased its scrutiny on China's Thousand Talents Plan
since 2018, when the two countries started to be locked in a trade battle,
and Beijing has reportedly refrained from talking publicly about the program.
Chinese state tabloid Global Times labelled the American scepticism
as "hysteria".
Since 2008, more than 7,000 researchers and scientists based outside
of China have participated in the Thousand Talents Plan, many of whom are
of Chinese descent.
Many warn that Washington's crackdown efforts must not give way to racial
profiling. David Ho, a renowned Taiwanese-American HIV researcher, suggested
in an earlier media interview: "If you want to implement policies,
you should implement for all, not just the Chinese scientists."
(22) China's Non-Traditional Espionage - statement by FBI
https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/chinas-non-traditional-espionage-against-the-united-states
Bill Priestap
Assistant Director, Counterintelligence Division
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Statement Before the Senate Judiciary Committee
Washington, D.C.
December 12, 2018
China's Non-Traditional Espionage Against the United States: The Threat
and Potential Policy Responses
Statement for the Record
Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Feinstein, members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, and thank you
for highlighting the threat from Chinese espionage.
It is impossible to overstate the differences between the American and
Chinese systems. China is an authoritarian, one-party state where the Chinese
Communist Party reigns supreme. At the Chinese Communist Party's direction,
the Chinese government dominates every facet of Chinese life, through actions
such as central economic planning, Internet and media censorship, and leveraging
intrusive technologies.
The Chinese government is attempting to acquire or steal, not only the
plans and intentions of the United States government, but also the ideas
and innovations of the very people that make our economy so incredibly
successful. [...]
Because the Chinese government creates an uneven playing field, and
because this is done partly to facilitate the transfer of technology
to China, our companies face what appears to be a very grim choice:
participate and compete in the Chinese market and put vital corporate assets
at grave risk, or neglect China and risk the loss of the second largest
market in the world. But this is a false choice for three reasons.
First, a lack of participation in the Chinese market will not spare
a company from the risks the Chinese government and its companies pose.
While the risks may be more acute for companies with business in China,
all companies, even those solely operating in the United States, are at
risk.
Second, while U.S. companies may be able to operate and profit in
China for a time, it is on borrowed time. The Chinese government will permit
foreign companies to operate only so long as it is advantageous to China.
Is the U.S. company making a product that China needs but cannot yet produce
domestically, such as sophisticated agricultural machinery? If so, the
U.S. company will be allowed to operate, but only until China learns enough
about the business that they can replace it with a domestic version.
Is the U.S. company using sophisticated intellectual property or a unique
business model? Then such companies may also be allowed to operate, as
long as they divulge the required technology, data, or expertise to
a Chinese entity. Alternatively, a company may be allowed to operate simply
to give China a better opportunity to understand how to copy the business
and outcompete it globally. From the viewpoint of the Chinese government,
many of the foreign companies doing business in China represent a temporary
failure of the domestic market to meet demand. The government believes
that if something can be made in China, then it should be made in China.
Third, the bulk of the competition between U.S. companies and Chinese
companies is not in the Chinese or American market. It is everywhere else
in the world. American businesses will need a strategy to compete with
China's national champions globally. ...
(23) Dr. Francis Boyle: Coronavirus leaked from Wuhan BioLab, as
Lyme Disease & West Nile Disease leaked from US Lab at Plum Island
Dr. Francis Boyle: "It's clear this thing blew back on the Chinese"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pur2NIh9Zrs
Dr. Francis Boyle: Coronavirus Is Twice As Potent As SARS
7 Feb 2020
Dr. Francis Boyle joins The Alex Jones Show to expose the potent dangers
of a coronavirus outbreak in comparison to previous viral pandemics. (3:41)
1.55 It's clear this thing blew back on the Chinese, just as all these
hideous biological warfare agents that we're working on in our own BSL-4
facilities.
Alex J: like Lymes Disease, that came from that New York offshore lab
... Plum Island ...
FB: Yes the Lyme Disease clearly came out of the Bioware Lab at Plum
Island. Likewise West Nile Disease clearly came out of the Bioware
Lab at Plum Island.
(24) Professor Francis Boyle, author of the BioWeapons Act, says
Coronavirus is a Biological Warfare Weapon
https://greatgameindia.com/dr-francis-boyle-creator-of-bioweapons-act-says-coronavirus-is-biological-warfare-weapon/
Dr. Francis Boyle Creator Of BioWeapons Act Says Coronavirus Is Biological
Warfare Weapon
By GreatGameIndia
February 3, 2020
In an explosive interview Dr. Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological
Weapons Act has given a detailed statement admitting that the 2019 Wuhan
Coronavirus is an offensive Biological Warfare Weapon and that the
World Health Organization (WHO) already knows about it.
video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pur2NIh9Zrs
Francis Boyle is a professor of international law at the University
of Illinois College of Law. He drafted the U.S. domestic implementing
legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological
Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, that was approved unanimously by
both Houses of the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George
H.W. Bush.
In an exclusive interview given to Geopolitics and Empire, Dr. Boyle
discusses the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China and the Biosafety Level
4 laboratory (BSL-4) from which he believes the infectious disease escaped.
He believes the virus is potentially lethal and an offensive biological
warfare weapon or dual-use biowarfare weapons agent genetically modified
with gain of function properties, which is why the Chinese government
originally tried to cover it up and is now taking drastic measures to contain
it. The Wuhan BSL-4 lab is also a specially designated World Health Organization
(WHO) research lab and Dr. Boyle contends that the WHO knows full well
what is occurring.
Dr. Boyle also touches upon GreatGameIndia's exclusive report Coronavirus
Bioweapon where we reported in detail how Chinese Biowarfare agents
working at the Canadian lab in Winnipeg were involved in the smuggling
of Coronavirus to Wuhan's lab from where it is believed to have been
leaked.
Dr. Boyle's position is in stark contrast to the mainstream media's
narrative of the virus being originated from the seafood market, which
is increasingly being questioned by many experts.
Recently, American Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas also dismantled the
mainstream media's claim on Thursday that pinned the coronavirus outbreak
on a market selling dead and live animals.
In a video accompanying his post, Cotton explained that the Wuhan wet
market (which Cotton incorrectly referred to as a seafood market) has been
shown by experts to not be the source of the deadly contagion.
Cotton referenced a Lancet study which showed that many of the first
cases of the novel coronavirus, including patient zero, had no connection
to the wet market - devastatingly undermining mainstream media's claim.
"As one epidemiologist said: 'That virus went into the seafood
market before it came out of the seafood market.' We still don't know where
it originated," Cotton said.
"I would note that Wuhan also has China's only bio-safety level
four super laboratory that works with the world's most deadly pathogens
to include, yes, coronavirus."
China claimed - for almost two months - that coronavirus had originated
in a Wuhan seafood market. That is not the case. @TheLancet published a
study demonstrating that of the original 40 cases, 14 of them had no contact
with the seafood market, including Patient Zero. pic.twitter.com/PdgqgHjkGy
- Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 30, 2020 [...]
(25) TRANSCRIPT: Bioweapons Expert Dr. Francis Boyle interview with
Geopolitics & Empire on Coronavirus
https://greatgameindia.com/transcript-bioweapons-expert-dr-francis-boyle-on-coronavirus/
TRANSCRIPT: Bioweapons Expert Dr. Francis Boyle On Coronavirus
By GreatGameIndia - February 5, 2020
A recent interview with Bioweapons expert Dr. Francis Boyle published
by GreatGameIndia and conducted by Geopolitics & Empire, has been exploding
across the world the past few days as the truth is emerging on the origins
of the Coronavirus Bioweapon.
Francis Boyle is a professor of international law at the University
of Illinois College of Law. He drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation
for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological Weapons
Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, that was approved unanimously by both Houses
of the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush.
Geopolitics & Empire is joined by Dr. Francis Boyle, who is international
law professor at the University of Illinois. We'll be discussing the Wuhan
coronavirus and biological warfare. ...
Dr. Francis Boyle: Well, that's a lot of questions. I guess we can take
them one at a time, but if you just do a very simple Google search on "Does
China have a BSL-4 laboratory?", Wuhan comes up right away. It's at
the top of the list. That's all with the moment this type of thing happened
I began to do that. So a BSL-4 is the most serious type. And basically
BSL-4 labs, we have many of them here in the United States, are used
to develop offensive biological warfare weapons with DNA genetic engineering.
So it does seem to me that the Wuhan BSL-4 is the source of the coronavirus.
My guess is that they were researching SARS, and they weaponize it further
by giving it a gain of function properties, which means it could be more
lethal.
Indeed, the latest report now is it's a 15% fatality rate, which is
more than SARS at 83% infection rate. A typical gain of function travels
in the air so it could reach out maybe six feet or more from someone emitting
a sneeze or a cough. Likewise, this is a specially designated WHO research
lab. The WHO was in on it and they knew full well what was going on there.
Yes. It's also been reported that Chinese scientists stole coronavirus
materials from the Canadian lab at Winnipeg. Winnipeg is Canada's formal
center for research, developing, testing, biological warfare weapons. It's
along the lines of Fort Detrick here in the United States of America. I
have three degrees from Harvard. It would not surprise me if something
was being stolen out of Harvard to turn over to China. I read that report.
I don't know what was in those vials one way or the other.
But the bottom line is I drafted the US domestic implementing legislation
for the Biological Weapons Convention that was approved unanimously by
both Houses in the United States Congress signed into law by President
Bush Sr. that it appears the coronavirus that we're dealing with here is
an offensive biological warfare weapon that leaked out of Wuhan BSL-4.
I'm not saying it was done deliberately. But there had been previous
reports of problems with that lab and things leaking out of it. I'm afraid
that is what we are dealing with today. ...
The implementing legislation that I drafted was originally designed
to stop this type of work. "Death science work", I call it, "by
the United States government". After 9/11, 2001, it just completely
accelerated. My current figure, that last figure a 100 billion. I haven't
had a chance to re-crunch the numbers because I just started classes. But
you have to add in about another 5 billion per year.
Basically, this is offensive biological weapons raised by the United
States government and with its assistance in Canada and Britain. And so
other States, the world have responded accordingly including Russia and
China. They were going to set up a whole series of BSL-4 facilities as
well. And you know Wuhan was the first. It backfired on them.
Geopolitics and Empire: Would you basically consider what happened and
Wuhan and just boil it down to ineptitude or incompetence on the Chinese
part?
Dr. Francis Boyle: Well, it's criminality. It does appear they stole
something there from Winnipeg. This activity that they engaged in clearly
violates the Biological Weapons Convention. Research development of biological
weapons these days is an international crime, the use of it would be. That
was criminal.
I'm not saying they deliberately inflicted this on their own people,
but it leaked out of there and all these BSL-4 facilities leak. Everyone
knows that who studies this. So this was a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Unfortunately, it happened. The Chinese government under Xi and his comrades
there have been covering this up from the get-go. The first reported
case was December 1, so they'd been sitting on this until they couldn't
anymore. And everything they're telling you is a lie. It's propaganda.
The WHO still refuses to declare a global health emergency. It said
Tedros was over there shaking hands with Xi and smiling and yanking
it up. The WHO was in on it. They've approved many of these BSL-4 labs.,
they know exactly what's going on and that is a WHO research-approved
laboratory. They know what's going on too. You can't really believe anything
the WHO is telling you about this, either they're up to their eyeballs
in it, in my opinion.
Geopolitics and Empire: I'd probably agree with you that this outbreak
in Wuhan was an accidental leak from the laboratory. But just your thoughts,
it's happening at quite an opportune time because namely we're smack in
the middle of a US-China new Cold War, which is currently characterized
by economic warfare such as the trade war among other forms of hybrid and
technological warfare. And it seems the Wuhan outbreak will likely hit
the Chinese economy hard. The Chinese are flat out dismissing any idea
that the US is involved in. Like I said, it's probably they made the mistakes
in the Wuhan lab. What are your thoughts of any seemingly, this would benefit
the USÉ
Dr. Francis Boyle: When the outbreak occurred, of course I considered
that alternative too. When you have an outbreak, you're never quite sure
who or what is behind it. It certainly isn't bats, that's ridiculous.
They made the same argument on Ebola in West Africa. I demolished that
online. You can check it out. So I kept competing theories about this.
[...]
Dr. Francis Boyle: They're complete unsafe. BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs
are only designed for research development testing of offensive biological
warfare agents. In my opinion, they serve no legitimate purpose at
all. They should all be shut down, every one of them. Even assuming,
they're simply too dangerous. If you want, there's an excellent documentary
called Anthrax Wars by Nadler and Coen and I'm in there. Repeatedly at
the end, I say with respect to these labs, three and four, this is a catastrophe
waiting to happen. Well, I'm afraid the catastrophe is now happened. So
there it is. [...]
Dr. Francis Boyle: Well, you just can't believe anything the Chinese
government, the WHO, the CDC are telling. They're all lies because
they know what's going on here and so you're going to have to figure it
out as fast as you can. But in my opinion, as of this time and I'm fully
prepared to consider further evidence on this, it does seem to me that
this was a DNA genetically engineered biological warfare agent leaking
out of Wuhan that has gain-of-function properties which can make it
more lethal. I think they are probably doing something with SARS to
make it a lot more lethal and more infectious. And so for that reason,
you have to take extreme precautions and they're now finally admitted anyone
within six feet can be infected, whereas with SARS that was about two feet.
Well, that's gaining a function right there and that should be a tip off.
So, I guess you're gonna have to protect yourself. Laurie Garrett had
a pretty good essay in a foreign policy yesterday and she was over there
covering the SARS and she has very good advice in there except that she
took the SARS figure out two to three feet and said well, you gotta stay
to two to three. I think you've got to stay at least six feet away because
this is gained function. It can flow through the air and infect and
it can get you in the eyes. Any orifice, the mouth, maybe the ears, we're
not sure at this point. [...]
(26) Chinese military website: Wuhan Coronavirus is manmade by the
U.S. to attack China
By GM35, 2020-02-04 18:33
https://gnews.org/author/joan2ski/
On Feb 1, 2020, the most influential Chinese military website <http://www.xilu.com>
www.xilu.com published an article to acknowledge that the Wuhan coronavirus
is manmade accusing the U.S. of creating such bioweapon against china.
https://gnews.org/102795/
(27) Chinese Communist Party, in video on WeChat, says Wuhan coronavirus
was created by U.S. to attack China
The video cities this research paper: Xu2020_Article_EvolutionOfTheNovelCoronavirus.pdf
https://gnews.org/101180/
CCP says Wuhan coronavirus was created by the U.S. to attack China
By GM35 - 2020-02-03 00:45010212
Last updated at 8 PM ET on Monday, Feb 3.
In this propaganda video spread on WeChat, the Chinese Communist Party
says that the Wuhan coronavirus was created by the U.S. to attack China.
The Chinese Communist Party is spreading a video linking Wuhan Coronavirus
to the U.S.
CCP video with English subtitle added by GNews: (Please feel free to
download and distribute)
The Orginal CCP video without English subtitle:
English transcript from the video:
Chinese scientists uncovered terrible secrets. Four proteins identified
in the virus were changed for a precision attack - specifically against
genes found in Chinese people.
Multiple research papers analyzing the novel coronavirus have already
concluded that this virus could not have come from the natural world. Finally,
the evidence is here. ...
(28) HIV-Like "Mutation" recalls Indian scientists claim:
Coronavirus engineered to incorporate parts of HIV genome
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/coronavirus-hiv-mutation-suggests-nearly-1000x-more-likely-sars-infect
Scientists Discover HIV-Like "Mutation" Which Makes Coronavirus
Extremely Infectious
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/26/2020 - 19:45
While mainstream scientists continue to perform mental gymnastics to
insist that the new coronavirus wasn't man-made, new research from scientists
in China and Europe reveal that the disease happens to have an 'HIV-like
mutation' which allows it to bind with human cells up to 1,000 times
stronger than the Sars virus, according to SCMP.
Recall that at the end of January, a team of Indian scientists
wrote in a now-retracted, scandalous paper claiming that the coronavirus
may have been genetically engineered to incorporate parts of the HIV genome,
writing "This uncanny similarity of novel inserts in the 2019-
nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag is unlikely to be fortuitous
in nature," meaning - it was unlikely to have occurred naturally.
Fast forward to new research by a team from Nankai University, which
writes that COV-19 has an 'HIV-like mutation' that allows it to quickly
enter the human body by binding with a receptor called ACE2 on a cell membrane.
Other highly contagious viruses, including HIV and Ebola, target
an enzyme called furin, which works as a protein activator in the human
body. Many proteins are inactive or dormant when they are produced and
have to be "cut" at specific points to activate their various
functions.
When looking at the genome sequence of the new coronavirus, Professor
Ruan Jishou and his team at Nankai University in Tianjin found a section
of mutated genes that did not exist in Sars, but were similar to those
found in HIV and Ebola. -SCMP
"This finding suggests that 2019-nCoV [the new coronavirus] may
be significantly different from the Sars coronavirus in the infection pathway,"
reads the paper published this month on Chinaxiv.org - a platform used
by the Chinese Academy of Sciences which releases research papers prior
to peer-review.
"This virus may use the packing mechanisms of other viruses
such as HIV," they added.
For those confused, what the latest scientific paper claims is that
whereas the Coronavirus may indeed contain a specific HIV-like feature
that makes it extremely infectious, that was the result of a rather bizarre
"mutation." However, since the scientists did not make the
scandalous claim that Chinese scientists had created an airborne version
of HIV, but instead blamed a mutation, they will likely not be forced to
retract it, even if it the odds of such a "random" mutation
taking place naturally are extremely small.
As a reminder, the running narrative is that the new coronavirus lie
dormant in bats somewhere between 20 and 70 years, then 'crossed over'
to humans through and unknown species - possibly a Pangolin - before it
emerged at a Wuhan, China meat market roughly 900 feet from a level-4 bioweapons
lab.
And what were they researching at said lab? Among other things -
why Ebola and HIV can lie dormant in bats without causing diseases.
According to the new study, the 'mutation' can generate a structure
known as a cleavage site in the new coronavirus' spike protein, SCMP
reports. "Compared to the Sars' way of entry, this binding method
is "100 to 1,000 times" as efficient, according to the study."
The virus uses the outreaching spike protein to hook on to the host
cell, but normally this protein is inactive. The cleavage site structure's
job is to cheat the human furin protein, so it will cut and activate the
spike protein and cause a "direct fusion" of the viral and cellular
membranes. -SCMP
(a recent paper published by Dr. Zhou Peng of the Wuhan Institute of
Virology, meanwhile, is "Immunogenicity of the spike glycoprotein
of Bat SARS-like coronavirus.") ==
Chinese scientists: Coronavirus has 'mutated' gene similar to those
found in HIV and Ebola
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3052495/coronavirus-far-more-likely-sars-bond-human-cells-scientists-say
Coronavirus far more likely than Sars to bond to human cells due
to HIV-like mutation, scientists say
Research by team from Nankai University shows new virus has mutated
gene similar to those found in HIV and Ebola
{Ebola was one of the viruses smuggled from Winnipeg to Wuhan Institute
of Virology by Dr. Xiangguo Qiu; see items 15 & 16 above - Peter
M.}
Finding may help scientists understand how the infection spreads and
where it came from
Stephen Chen in Beijing
Published: 12:30am, 27 Feb, 2020
Updated: 1:32am, 27 Feb, 2020
The new coronavirus has an HIV-like mutation that means its ability
to bind with human cells could be up to 1,000 times as strong as the
Sars virus, according to new research by scientists in China and Europe.
The discovery could help to explain not only how the infection has spread
but also where it came from and how best to fight it.
Scientists showed that Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome)
entered the human body by binding with a receptor protein called ACE2
on a cell membrane. And some early studies suggested that the new coronavirus,
which shares about 80 per cent of the genetic structure of Sars,
might follow a similar path.
But the ACE2 protein does not exist in large quantities in healthy
people, and this partly helped to limit the scale of the Sars outbreak
of 2002-03, in which infected about 8,000 people around the world. Advertisement
Other highly contagious viruses, including HIV and Ebola, target
an enzyme called furin, which works as a protein activator in the human
body. Many proteins are inactive or dormant when they are produced and
have to be "cut" at specific points to activate their various
functions.
When looking at the genome sequence of the new coronavirus, Professor
Ruan Jishou and his team at Nankai University in Tianjin found a section
of mutated genes that did not exist in Sars, but were similar to those
found in HIV and Ebola.
"This finding suggests that 2019-nCoV [the new coronavirus] may
be significantly different from the Sars coronavirus in the infection pathway,"
the scientists said in a paper published this month on Chinaxiv.org, a
platform used by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to release scientific
research papers before they have been peer-reviewed.
"This virus may use the packing mechanisms of other viruses such
as HIV."
According to the study, the mutation can generate a structure known
as a cleavage site in the new coronavirus' spike protein.
The virus uses the outreaching spike protein to hook on to the host
cell, but normally this protein is inactive. The cleavage site structure's
job is to trick the human furin protein, so it will cut and activate the
spike protein and cause a "direct fusion" of the viral and cellular
membranes.
Compared to the Sars' way of entry, this binding method is "100
to 1,000 times" as efficient, according to the study.
Just two weeks after its release, the paper is already the most viewed
ever on Chinarxiv.
In a follow-up study, a research team led by Professor Li Hua from Huazhong
University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, Hubei province, confirmed
Ruan's findings.
The mutation could not be found in Sars, Mers or Bat-CoVRaTG13, a
bat coronavirus that was considered the original source of the new
coronavirus with 96 per cent similarity in genes, it said.
This could be "the reason why SARS-CoV-2 is more infectious than
other coronaviruses", Li wrote in a paper released on Chinarxiv on
Sunday.
Meanwhile, a study by French scientist Etienne Decroly at Aix-Marseille
University, which was published in the scientific journal Antiviral Research
on February 10, also found a "furin-like cleavage site" that
is absent in similar coronaviruses. ...
(29) update March 15, 2020: Global Research writers say that
Coronavirus is a US weapon against China, planted deliberately
- by Peter Myers, March 15, 2020
Trotskyists mostly follow Noam Chomsky in repudiating 'conspiracy theories',
e.g. that the CIA killed JFK or that Mossad did 911.
But Stalinists, like James Petras and Michel Chossudovsky, endorse such
theories - as does the Far Right.
The China issue now divides the dissident camp into those who critical
of China (like me), and those who defend it (like Michael Hudson, Reg Little,
Larry Romanoff, and Israel Shamir).
Chossudovsky's website Global Research takes a pro-China line, denying
that China has committed genocide against Tibetans and Uighurs. It runs
articles by Larry Romanoff, an American academic living in Shanghai,
who says that Coronavirus is a US weapon against China.
Romanoff denies the 1989 Beijing massacre.
Other defenders of China, like Israel Shamir, also deny the 1989 Beijing
massacre and the Uighur genocide; it's a consistent theme.
Shamir, a Jewish Communist who moved from Russia to Israel after the
1967 war, denies the Ukraine Famine too. He defends American scientists
who illegally transferred technology to China. Of Charles Lieber, Shamir
wrote (in my forum), "God bless this Harvard scientist who
had helped the Chinese to advance."
Romanoff claims that the Coronavirus was developed in the US as a bioweapon:
China's Coronavirus: A Shocking Update. Did The Virus Originate in the
US?
Japan, China and Taiwan Reports on the Origin of the Virus
By Larry Romanoff
https://www.globalresearch.ca/china-coronavirus-shocking-update/5705196
He rejects any Chinese role in developing the virus. He makes no mention
of Zhengli Shi and Xingyi Ge - virologists from Wuhan Institute of Virology,
who developed such viruses in cooperation with University of North Carolina.
Zhengli Shi (Shi Zhengli) is Director of the P4 lab (BSL-4 lab) at Wuhan
Institute of Virology. The connection is made clear in items 2 to 12 above,
but Romanoff mentions none of it.
On Iran, Romanoff writes,
"Neither Iran nor Italy were included in the above tests,
but both countries have now deciphered the locally prevalent genome
and have declared them of different varieties from those in China,
which means they did not originate in China but were of necessity introduced
from another source."
The strains of the virus in Italy and Iran are different from those
in China. Most people say that the virus mutated:
Coronavirus has Mutated, Iran attacked by a Different Strain from Wuhan
Posted by EU Times on Feb 26th, 2020 https://www.eutimes.net/2020/02/coronavirus-has-mutated-iran-attacked-by-a-different-strain-from-wuhan/
Coronavirus: Italian strain isolated at Sacco hospital 27 February 2020
http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2020/02/27/coronavirus-italian-strain-isolated-at-sacco-hospital_986ff0c2-7bd6-49fe-bbef-b3a0c1ebd6f4.html
But Romanoff says that those different viruses were PLANTED in each
place by the CIA.
He was able to get away with such statements a few weeks ago, when the
virus was killing only Chinese. But now that the virus is spreading in
Europe and the USA, devastating the economy and likely to kill millions,
the claim that it was deliberately PLANTED looks a bit thin.
A similar line to Romanoff's is taken by Peter Koenig, writing at NEO
and also at Global Research:
China Confronts COVID19 with Endless Creation Towards a Shared Future
for Mankind
https://journal-neo.org/2020/02/28/china-confronts-covid19-with-endless-creation-towards-a-shared-future-for-mankind/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/china-is-confronting-the-covid19-epidemic-was-it-man-made-an-act-of-of-bio-warfare/570506728.02.2020.
Michel Chossudovsky, editor at Global Research, claims that Coronavirus
was engineered by "Big Pharma" and "Big Money" - targeting
China. He dismissed the pandemic as "fake":
COVID-19 Coronavirus "Fake" Pandemic: Timeline and Analysis
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, March 08, 2020
https://www.globalresearch.ca/ncov-2019-coronavirus-time-line/5705776
Chossudovsky says that the Wuhan Sport Military World Games (Oct. 18-27,
2019), in which 200 American military personnel participated (out of a
total of 10,000), may have been an opportunity to PLANT the virus. It's
a possibility, but no evidence have been presented.
An exercise simulating a pandemic, called Event 201, was held in Oct.
2019 by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in conjunction with
the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In the simulation, the pandemic outbreak killed 65 million people. Chossudovsky
alleges that the simulation has now gone real.
Chossudovsky states, "These figures confirm that we are not
facing a global health emergency, that the probability of infection is
low."
That is no longer accepted.
Chossudovsky writes, "What is at stake is the alliance of "Big
Pharma" and "Big Money", with the endorsement of the Trump
Administration."
However, the CDC and the Trump Administration have not handled the pandemic
very well. The CDC refused to use the German test adopted by the WHO and
used in every other country; it insisted on developing its own test, but
early ones were faulty, and then there was a shortage, during which the
virus escaped from Washington state. Whereas it has been contained in China,
it looks like exploding in the West, such that the USA will be a disaster
zone, while China is already beginning to get back to normal. Disastrous
handling of the virus would cause a loss of confidence in Capitalism,
and could also cause Trump to lose the election.
After initially denying the reality of the virus, the Chinese regime
ordered a lockdown of Hubei Province on January 23, 2020, two days before
Chinese New Year began on January 25. That lockdown saved China. Wuhan
is a transport hub; without the lockdown, Wuhan residents would have 'gone
home' for Chinese New Year, spreading the virus widely.
Whereas China's authoritarian approach has suppressed transmission of
the virus, the West's libertarian approach has facilitated its spread.
By late 2020, the West will likely be a disaster zone, while China will
have largely recovered. This would reverse the scenario put by Romanoff
and Chossudovsky'. Rather than the virus destroying China's economy,
it will destroy the Western economy.
Why so? Because during the Great Depression of the 1930s, western
'libertarian' societies languished in bankruptcy and mass unemployment,
whereas the authoritarian regimes in Russia and Germany had full employment.
Boeing was in a precarious state before the virus hit, having sacrificed
engineering excellence for Shareholder Value. It wasted $43 billion on
share buybacks prior to the 737 Max crisis, cash that it sorely needs now.
With tourism and business travel crashing in the wake of the virus, airlines
are cancelling orders and switching to Airbus. Boeing's net sales are
now negative; it is borrowing from banks, and facing backruptcy.
The leading American exporter, and exemplar of American technology,
has been brought to ruin by the Profit motive. Surely this will cause
a crisis of confidence in Capitalism.
The US government should have ordered a lockdown of Washington state;
it was the equivalent of Hubei province. But whereas China acted decisively,
Trump jawboned; he was downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic (like
Chossudovsky).
Equally, the EU should have closed borders to stop the virus spreading
from Italy; but it did nothing, until the virus had already escaped.
The British Government still has a "do nothing" policy.
As Sanders says, the decentralised and weak authority structure, and
Profit-oriented Health system, cannot handle this emergency.
The Coronavirus is already leading to a worldwide depression, and world
war could follow, as it did in the 1930s. Such a war would devastate the
planet; that's a strong argument against the claim that it was deliberately
planted.
The alternative explanation is that it was developed in Wuhan Institute
of Virology (WIV), and escaped. All such P4 labs (BSL-4 labs) develop both
weapons and vaccines, the vaccines being a protection against the weapon.
Wuhan Institute of Virology would have many workers, not only virologists
but also cleaners and people who look after animals (they do experiments
on animals). Most likely, one of these workers was infected by the Coronavirus,
and unknowingly took it outside. After a few contacts, it reached the nearby
Seafood Market, which is a local gathering-spot. From there it disseminated
in Wuhan.
There's no way Xi or other leaders in Beijing could have known exactly
what was going on in that lab. And scientists at the University of North
Carolina share responsibility for developing the virus.
For the record, it must be acknowledged that PNAC, the Jewish-American
Neocon lobby, advocated development of Biological Weapons. Some conspiracy
theorists (such as Benjamin Fulford) posit that the virus was made in Israel,
to get the US and China to fight one another, the goal being a hoped-for
World Government. Fulford wrote,
"The pandemic, which is mostly a media event, and the financial
collapse, which is real, are the cover being used to usher in a world republic,
P3 Freemason, Illuminati and CIA sources all confirm."
US Presidential Election, Tokyo Olympics cancelled? Engineered pandemic
ushers in World Government
By Benjamin Fulford
https://benjaminfulford.net/2020/03/09/us-presidential-election-tokyo-olympics-cancelled-as-fake-pandemic-ushers-in-world-government/.
Israel commits suicide by declaring war on China
By Benjamin Fulford
"The battle to liberate planet Earth is reaching a dangerous stage
as the Khazarian mafia uses bioweapons to try and start a war between
the United States and China."
https://benjaminfulford.net/2020/02/10/israel-commits-suicide-by-declaring-war-on-china-2/.
I can't go that far; such a world would not be worth having.
Anthony Hall, in his paper Who or What started the Wuhan coronavirus
(March 02, 2020), quotes PNAC's advocacy of biological weapons, but also
notes that Epoch Times reported China's Defense Minister Chi Haotian giving
speeches advocating such weapons:
https://ahtribune.com/world/3930-who-or-what-started-the-wuhan-coronavirus.html
Chi's alleged speech of December 2005 advocating Lebensraum and world
domination is at https://rense.com/general85/China'sPlanToConquer.htm
Another translation is at https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/war-is-not-far-from-us-and-is-the-midwife-of-the-chinese-century.30888/
China lobbyists deny the veracity of these speeches. But they happily
accuse the CIA of many atrocious crimes. I accuse the CIA of the JFK assassination
and many other crimes, Mossad of 9/11, and China of having plans for world
domination (but it's not the only one).
There's no proof that these speeches are genuine. But they remain 'on
the table' because
(a) China has copied elements of Nazi Germany's economic system
(b) Shinzo Abe accused China of a Lebensraum policy, in an address to
the Hudson Institute in 2010: https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/japans-former-pm-says-china-seeking-lebensraum.77438/.
Remarks by Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
October 15,2010
The Capital Hilton
https://www.hudson.org/content/researchattachments/attachment/824/abe_final.pdf.==
How did the coronavirus reach Iran? Chinese workers building a high-speed
railway through Qom, the centre of the outbreak in Iran, could have brought
it:
https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/stock-news/81966875/strategic-partnership-with-china-lies-at-root-of-i
Strategic Partnership With China Lies at Root of Iran's Coronavirus
Outbreak
Date : 11/03/2020 @ 16:27
Source : Dow Jones News
By Benoit Faucon, Sune Engel Rasmussen and Jeremy Page
"Iranian officials trace the origins of the country's coronavirus
epidemic to the holy city of Qom, home to dozens of seminaries and religious
shrines -- but also a number of Chinese-backed infrastructure projects
built by scores of workers and technicians from China. ... China Railway
Engineering Corp. is building a $2.7 billion high-speed rail line through
Qom. Chinese technicians have been helping refurbish a nuclear-power plant
nearby. There are also Chinese religious students studying at Qom's seminaries.
Iranian health officials have said the source of the outbreak is likely
either Chinese workers in Qom or an Iranian businessman from Qom who travelled
to China. Iranian officials haven't identified the businessman by name
but say he travelled from China to Qom through an indirect flight. ...".
==
The first British victim, a healthy young man aged 25 working as a teacher
in Wuhan, kept a diary in which he describes the Wuhan Flu:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8075633/First-British-victim-25-describes-coronavirus.html
What it's REALLY like to catch coronavirus: First British victim, 25,
describes how 'worst disease he ever had' left him sweating, shivering,
and struggling to breathe as his eyes burned and bones ached.
By CONNOR REED FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 09:08 AEDT, 5 March 2020 | UPDATED: 06:07 AEDT, 6 March 2020
==
Let no-one say, then, that this pandemic is "fake", merely
a media beatup.
Old people facing an agonising death from Coronavirus should be offered
the option of voluntary euthenasia.
(30) update March 17, 2020: China orders Lab to stop Leakage;
Russia, Venezuela & Cuba very little affected
China Vows To Put An End To "Lab Leakage Of Pathogenic Microorganisms
And Various Samples"
by Tyler Durden
Thu, 02/13/2020 - 19:05
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-vows-put-end-lab-leakage-pathogenic-samples
Seemingly providing more anecdotal evidence that the Covid-19 outbreak
was caused by an accidental leak of a bio-engineered virus and not by some
freak of nature in Wuhan's market, China's Communist Party has issued a
serious "Wartime Order" demanding more care and containment be
taken with virus handling.
https://translate.google.com/translate?depth=2&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=http://www.yangtse.com/zncontent/276541.html
Beijing CDC Party Committee Issues Wartime Status Order
2020-02-13 18:38:07
Wartime Status Order
Party Committee of Beijing Centers for Disease Control
In order to further discipline, compact responsibility, and ensure that
all prevention and control work is carried out in an efficient and standardized
manner, the Party Committee of the Beijing Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention issued a wartime state order, requiring its party members
and employees to fully recognize the "critical period", "critical
moment", and "key points". The urgency and importance of
the moment, consciously established a "very conscious" and entered
a "wartime state."
The first is to insist on using "state of war" to lead the
thinking. [...]
The second is to insist on strengthening implementation with "wartime
standards." [...]
The third is to strictly control contact with "wartime thinking."
[...]
The fourth is to insist on strict management with "wartime thinking."
Highlight political security, ideological security, network information
security, security of confidential work, laboratory biological security,
food security, etc. The epidemic data collection, statistics and reporting
will be done well, and information security and confidentiality security
incidents will be resolutely prevented. Front-line personnel engaged in
flow regulation, pathogen inspection, and close management should strictly
implement prevention and control guidelines and operating specifications,
do a good job of personal protection requirements, and ensure personal
safety. Strengthen laboratory management and resolutely
put an end to the theft, leakage, and loss of pathogenic bacteria (poisons)
and various samples.
Fifth, we must adhere to the "wartime need" service guarantee.
[...]
Sixth, we must adhere to "war discipline" and take it seriously.
[...] ==
Francis Boyle update Update on Coronavirus, March 8, 2020 (video): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H0fEZr2psMQ
==
OLDMICROBIOLOGIST writes, "I have zero proof other than my gut
feeling that this is a bioweapon. [...] However, evidence against it
being a bioweapon is Russia, Venezuela, and Cuba are minimally affected.
This could mean effective countermeasures or botched attacks. It is inconsistent
though with the way the CIA operates."
original: https://thesaker.is/continuation-of-the-kinda-open-thread/
condensed version: https://www.unz.com/article/was-coronavirus-a-biowarfare-attack-against-china/
==
(31) Coronavirus Exposed, by Sir Adrian Bond
This is an excellent summary; it's worth saving the webpage:
Coronavirus Exposed, Part 1: Communist Coverup, or Pandemic Bioweapon
of Mass Destruction?
by Adrian Bond
http://archive.is/QIBmE
{photo} Coronavirus 2019-nCoV, able to enter and infect human cellsÕ
ACE2 receptor via its spike protein.
The official story about Coronavirus 2019 nCoV is that it "appears
to have originated in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan,
a Chinese city about 650 miles south of Beijing that has a population of
more than 11 million people." ...
Typically not included in most mainstream news stories, however, is
the fact that the claimed epicenter of the outbreak is just 8.6 miles from
Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses ChinaÕs only P4-Level
Biosafety Laboratory capable of storing, studying, or engineering Pathogen
Level 4 microbes such as other coronaviruses, Ebola, Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome, SARS, H5N1 influenza virus, Japanese encephalitis, and dengue.
...
In 2006, one of China's preeminent virologists, Professor Zhengli
Shi, co-authored the study, Review of Bats and SARS, concluding that
"a SARS epidemic may recur in the future and that SARS-like coronaviruses
(SL-CoVs) that originate from different reservoir host populations
may lead to epidemics at different times or in different regionsÉ.
The recent discovery of a group of diverse SL-CoVs in bats support
the possibility of these events É." [...]
However, Prof. Zhengli and her co-authors published a study early
last year on March 2, 2019 entitled Bat Coronaviruses in China which
explicitly warned,
"During the past two decades, three zoonotic coronaviruses have
been identified as the cause of large-scale disease outbreaks - Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS),
and Swine Acute Diarrhea Syndrome (SADS). SARS and MERS emerged in 2003
and 2012, respectively, and caused a worldwide pandemic that claimed thousands
of human lives, while SADS struck the swine industry in 2017. They
have common characteristics, such as they are all highly pathogenic
to humans or livestock, their agents originated from bats, and two of them
originated in China. Thus, it is highly likely that future SARS-
or MERS-like coronavirus outbreaks will originate from bats, and there
is an increased probability that this will occur in China. Therefore,
the investigation of bat coronaviruses becomes an urgent issue for the
detection of early warning signs, which in turn minimizes the impact of
such future outbreaks in China" (emphasis added). [...]
Apparently, the virology scientific community not only failed to heed
Prof. ZhengliÕs explicit, recent dire warnings about the "high
likelihood" that future SARS- or MERS-like coronavirus outbreaks would
originate from bats - they also ignored ZhengliÕs incredibly pertinent
report published ten years ago in July, 2010, Identification of key
amino acid residues required for horseshoe bat angiotensin-I converting
enzyme 2 to function as a receptor for severe acute respiratory syndrome
coronavirus. The studyÕs abstract canÕt be clearer on the
immunological risks associated with protein ACE2, with its obvious
liability for usurpation by viral agents with a little modified genome
sequencing:
"Angiotensin-I converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the receptor for severe
acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus (SARS-CoV). A previous study
indicated that ACE2 from a horseshoe bat, the host of a highly related
SARS-like coronavirus, could not function as a receptor for SARS-CoV. Here,
we demonstrate that a 3 aa change from SHE (aa 4042) to FYQ was sufficient
to convert the bat ACE2 into a fully functional receptor for SARS-CoV.
We further demonstrate that an ACE2 molecule from a fruit bat, which contains
the FYQ motif, was able to support SARS-CoV infection, indicating a potentially
much wider host range for SARS-CoV-related viruses among different bat
populations."
This old but remarkable study concludes that only a minor genome sequence
change was required to convert a non-susceptible bat ACE2 protein into
a functional receptor for SARS-CoV, something that could easily happen
in nature. "Considering that there are more than 60 different horseshoe
[bat] species around the world (Flanders et al., 2009; Rossiter et al.,
2007), it is possible that one or some of them may serve as the natural
reservoir of SARS-CoV and/or its progenitor virus(es)."
Why is it that current State virologists are apparently ignorant of
these essential discoveries of yesteryear? [...]
And the new study on Coronavirus 2019-nCoV by the joint research
team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the People's Liberation Army,
and Institut Pasteur of Shanghai indeed found that, like SARS, the
virus targeted the ACE2 protein. It's just as Prof. Zhengli predicated
a decade ago: "Éthe fact that an ACE2 protein from a megabat,
the fruit bat Rousettus leschenaultia, can function as a receptor for SARS-CoV
would suggest that the host range for SARS-CoV or SL-CoVs may be much wider
than originally thought."
So what happened - did the virology and surrounding scientific community
drop the ball on these well-established findings and warnings, or what?
After all, at least as February, 2008, they knew three key facts about
ACE2:
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is caused by the SARS-associated
coronavirus (SARS-CoV), which uses ACE2 as its receptor for cell entry.
SL-CoVs and SARS-CoVs share identical genome organizations and high sequence
identities, with the main exception of the N terminus of the spike protein,
known to be responsible for receptor binding in CoVs.
Whereas the SL-CoV spike protein was unable to use any of the three
ACE2 molecules as its receptor, and the SARS-CoV spike protein failed to
center cells expressing the bat ACE2, the chimeric spike protein the study
created did gain its ability to center cells via human ACE, and A minimal
insert region (amino acids 310 to 518) was found to be sufficient to convert
the SL-CoV S from non-ACE2 binding to human ACE2 binding, indicating that
the SL-CoV S is largely compatible with SARS-CoV S protein both in structure
and in function.
We know they knew these facts way back in 2008 because Prof. Zhengli
published the findings of these facts in her report, Difference in Receptor
Usage between Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Coronavirus and
SARS-Like Coronavirus of Bat Origin. Therein the scientists concluded,
"Knowing the capability of different CoVs to recombine both in the
laboratory and in nature, the possibility that SL-CoVs may gain the ability
to infect human cells by acquiring spike protein sequences competent for
binding to ACE2 or other surface proteins of human cells can be readily
envisaged."
Thus, it seems strange and perhaps even disingenuous that the new joint
CCP government-joint Coronavirus 2019-nCoV task force is seemingly ignorant
about coronavirus targeting the ACE2 protein, apparently pretending it's
only just now discovered this. After all, Zhengli's 2008 report was quite
clear about the role that this ACE2 protein would play in future pandemics:
the study "strengthened our belief that ACE2 from certain bat species
could be able to support SARS-CoV infection because of the predicted genetic
diversity of bat ACE2 variants in different bat species." [...]
At any rate, the forgoing storyline is the official word on Coronavirus
2019-nCoV, manifesting itself somehow in a seafood market in Wuhan.
[...]
China's National Biosafety Laboratory, located at Wuhan Institute of
Virology, is only 8.6 miles away from the claimed epicenter of the Coronavirus
2019-nCoV outbreak. Do you believe in coincidences? What's odd is that
despite completing the decade-long construction and having the official
inauguration of this P4 laboratory on January 31, 2015 - announced by the
General Office of Hubei Provincial People's Government, it wasn't until
2 and 1/2 years later in January 2018, that the Chinese government announced
that the lab was actually in operation. And ahead of the lab's second opening
in January 2018, biosafety experts and scientists from the United States
expressly warned "that a SARS-like virus could escape," much
in the same way the SARS virus had escaped multiple times from a lab in
Beijing. [...]
Wuhan Institute of Virology is also connected with the recent, major
scandal in Canada where two Chinese virologists working at Canada's
only Pathogen Level 4 virology laboratory, the National Microbiology
Lab (NML) in Winnipeg were caught stealing and smuggling some of the most
deadly viruses on earth, including the Ebola virus, back to China. The
suspects - a Chinese couple, virologist Dr. Xiangguo Qui and biologist
Dr. Keding Cheng - are now believed to be connected to China's biological
warfare program. Her husband, Dr. Qiu, was head of the Vaccine Development
and Antiviral Therapies Section in the Special Pathogens Program at the
NML. Dr. Keding Cheng, also affiliated with the NML, specifically the "Science
and Technology Core," is primarily a bacteriologist who shifted to
virology. According to ZeroHedge, "the couple is responsible for infiltrating
Canada's NML with many Chinese agents as students from a range of Chinese
scientific facilities directly tied to China's Biological Warfare Program,
including the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Center for Disease Control
and Prevention in Chengdu Military Region.
And guess what one of the stolen viruses was? Yup, coronavirus.
On May 4, 2013, NML's Scientific Director Frank Plummer received a shipment
of coronavirus from a Dutch virologist, who in turn had received it from
an Egyptian virologist treating a Saudi Arabian who contracted it. The
Canadian lab grew stocks of the virus, and then experimented upon animals
to see what they could infect with it. It is from this stash of reserves
that the coronavirus was stolen and smuggled by Dr. Qui, Dr. Cheng, and
by alledged Chinese Biological Warfare Program agents recruited from
the Wuhan Institute of Virology who were disguised as virology students
at the University of Manitoba. Similarly, and perhaps connected, is
the recent indictment of Charles Lieber, Chair of Harvard University's
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Prosecutors claim he had
a contract with Wuhan Institute of Virology. Reports CBS, "It appears
China paid Lieber hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years for his
involvement with the Chinese entities and for his work on research for
Chinese gain," said U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew Lelling."
Lieber lied about his links to Wuhan Institute of Virology, report Tonya
Alanez and Travis Andersen of the Boston Globe. "Federal authorities
said Charles Lieber, a prominent nanoscientist and a prolific inventor
and entrepreneur, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from his Chinese
connections."
Details about the extent of Lieber's illicit and illegal conspiracy
with the institute have yet to emerge. So this means, significantly, that
not only are there Chinese nationals allegedly being recruited from
Wuhan Institute of Virology to penetrate foreign P4 biosafety laboratories
abroad and smuggle the spoils back home, but it also appears
Americans and Canadians may be complicit in aiding the Chinese biowarfare
program. [...]
In fact, Prof. Zhengli has been Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator
of Wuhan Insititute of Virology for the last 20 years, initially starting
as a Research Assistant in 1990 before upgrading to Research Scientist
in 1993, serving in that role until 1995. Aside from a 5-year leave from
1995 to 2000 to get her PhD at University of Montpellier in France, she's
been at the Institute for an amazing 30 years.
Notably, starting in 2014, Prof. Zhengli began to win particularly
large sums of grant funding for the express purpose of researching and
experimenting with coronaviruses - often receiving numerous, overlapping
grants for the same time period. What's just as interesting is where a
lot of this funding originated - the US government. On January 6,
2014, Prof. Zhengli received a US$665,000 grant from the National Institute
of Health for a study named The Ecology of Bat Coronaviruses and the Risk
of Future Coronavirus Emergence (NIAID R01 AI1 10964) and then four
days later on January 10, 2014, an additional US$559,500 grant from
the United States Agency of International Development for research studied
entitled Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT 2_China (Project No. AID-OAA-A-1400102).
On top of these lucrative American grants she concurrently received
similarly significant grants from the National Basic Research program of
China, the Chinese Academy of Science, the National Natural Science Foundation
of China, and from the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese
Academy of Sciences totaling over US$2,500,000 for researching interspecies
transmission of zoonotic viruses, the identification, genetic evolution
and pathogenesis of bat viruses, the genetic variation of pathogens in
Africa, the evolution mechanism of the adaptation of bat SARS-related coronaviruses
to host receptor molecules, the risk of interspecies infection, genetic
evolution and transmission mechanism of important bat-borne viruses, and
pathogen biology studies on novel swine coronaviruses.
In just the past five years alone, Prof. Zhengli Shi has almost US$10
million in grants to study coronaviruses. [...]
Prof. Zhengli appears to be one of the world's leading bat virologists
- and most definitely the leading bat virologist in China. Indeed,
her C.V. explicitly states,
"Prof. Zhengli Shi 's researches focus on the molecular epidemiology
and interspecies infection discovery and characterization of novel viruses
in bats and other wildlife. She has gain [sic] rich expertise on pathogen
biology of coronaviruses and other emerging viruses of bat origin, virus
discovery, virus evolution, and development of diagnostic technologies
for emerging viruses. Prof Shi has identified ultimately the animal origin
of SARS, by discovering genetically diverse bat SARS related coronaviruses
(SARSr CoV), isolating bat SARSr CoVs highly homologous to SARS CoV that
are able to the same receptor [sic] as SARS CoV, and revealing the potential
recombination origin of SARS CoV. She has discovered a large number
of novel viruses from Chinese bat populations, including viruses with potential
public health significance."
Unsurprisingly, Prof. Zhengli has been featured as a key presenter at
over two dozen international virology conferences, the latest being SARS
to SADS: predict of emerging infectious diseases, held at UC Berkeley in
the summer of 2018. Her presentations at the next five most recent conferences
all relate specifically to the genetic evolution and interspecies infection
of bat coronaviruses. A complete list of Prof. ZhengliÕs conference
presentations may be found in Appendix B.
Nearly all of Prof. Zhengli's recent conference presentations relate
to bat coronaviruses. Do you believe in coincidences?
Prof. Zhengli has been or is currently a professional member of
the Chinese Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (20002016),
the Chinese Society for Microbiology (2002-present), the American Society
for Microbiology (2007-present), and the Scientific Committee of the
DIVERSITAS ecoHEALTH Core Project (20142016). She has served on
the Editorial Board of Virologica Sinica (20162016), on the Editorial
Board of Journal of Medical Virology (20152017), and on the Editorial
Board of Virology (20172019). She was Associate Editor of Virology
Journal (20162018), and Editor-in-Chief of Virologica Sinica (20172019).
Prof. Zhengli is also the recipient of numerous, prestigious awards and
honors, including the Natural Science Award of Hubei Province, China (First
Prize and Second Prize), Outstanding Scientist of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, and Outstanding Research Article on Natural Science (Grand Prize
and Second Prize). OK, but how is Prof. Zhengli relevant to the current
new outbreak of Coronavirus 2019-nCoV?
Chinese scientists, researchers, and doctors examining the emergent
2019-nCoV Coronavirus report that the new viral menace appears to
be "a recombinant virus between the bat coronavirus and an origin-unknown
coronavirus. The recombination occurred within the viral spike glycoprotein,
which recognizes cell surface receptor."
But Prof. Zhengli appears to have worked with recombinant Coronavirus
derivations involving viral spike proteins for over a decade at Wuhan Institute
of Virology, all the way back to 2006 and up to as recently as December,
2019 - the very month that 2019-nCoV Coronavirus was first reported
as having infected visitors at Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market just down
the road from her laboratory! [...]
In a letter to the editor of SCIENCE CHINA Life Sciences published in
November, 2017, entitled Cross-neutralization of SARS coronavirus-specific
antibodies against bat SARS-like coronaviruses, Prof. Zhengli warns
that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) is considered
to be an emerging zoonotic pathogen crossing species barriers to infect
humans, and that the spike protein of the virus' RNA genome plays
a key role in human cellular entry. In that same month, the results
of a study Prof. Zhengli conducted, Serological evidence of bat SARS-related
coronavirus infection in humans, China indicated that some SARSr-CoVs may
have high potential to infect human cells, without the necessity for an
intermediate host. In 2016, one of the Directors at Wuhan Institute
of Virology posted the annual Director's Message, of which the following
finding was the top announcement: "The live SARS-like coronavirus
SL-CoV-WIV1 has been isolated for the first time from the bat droppings;
and such virus has been confirmed to invade the host cells through the
ACE2 of human beings, civets and Rhinolophus sinicus. The research
result has so far provided the most convincing evidence to the view that
Rhinolophus sinicus is the natural host of SARS-CoV (Nature, 2013)."
Does this not sound precisely like Coronavirus 2019-nCoV, which
invades the host cells through the ACE2 protein? At any rate, since Prof.
Zhengli is Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator of both the Emerging
Viruses Group and the National Biosafety Laboratory, this is squarely her
turf; the current outbreak seems amazingly similar. [...]
Basically, she is tremendously versatile and adept in her research whenever
she encounters these recombinant spikes proteins in viral interactions.
Moreover, it's not just coronaviruses from bats that she and her team have
discovered and explored, but also diverse novel viruses/virus antibodies
in bats, including adenoviruses, adeno-associated viruses, circoviruses,
paramyxoviruses, and filoviruses. In fact, Prof. Zhengli has coauthored
over an astounding 130 publications on viral pathogen identification, diagnosis
and epidemiology - nearly all of which commandeered at Wuhan Institute
of Virology where the National Biosafety Laboratory is located and where
she reigns as Head of the Department. In fact, on the World Society for
Virology website, Prof. Zhengli's profile confirms that one of her great
contributions was to "uncover genetically diverse SARS-like coronaviruses
in bats with her international collaborators and provide unequivocal evidence
that bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-CoV."
Thus, her adeptness in the specialized field of bat virology - especially
where transmission to humans is concerned - is inarguable.
Such an expansive personal history of expertise into coronaviruses is
not only impressive, but unique, and the bulk of her 30-year career
at Wuhan Institute Virology seems to have been dedicated primarily to the
examination and exploration of all facets of interspecies (though
primarily bat) pathogenic infection of coronaviruses into human host cells.
For reference, you can check Appendix A for the sum total of all her
published (or otherwise unclassified or declassified) studies at the
end of this essay. Prof. Zhengli's absolute mastery of bat-to-human transmission
of viruses via their spike protein binding with human cell receptors is
virtually conclusive and unrivalled. [...]
Why did the US National Institute of Health (NIH) grant Prof. Zhengli
$665,000 in 2014 to fund her study, The ecology of bat coronaviruses and
the risk of future coronavirus emergence? What did the US receive in return?
Why did the United States Agency of International Development grant
Prof. Zhengli $559,500 to fund her study, Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT
2_China? What did the US receive in return? Why did Prof. Zhengli receive
funding from U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction
Agency (the agency which deals specifically with Weapons of Mass Destruction),
the U.S. Biological Defense Research Directorate of the Naval Medical Research
Center, and the Department of Atomic of the Government of India? What other
professional relationships with U.S. defense agencies does Prof. Zhengli
have currently, or previously, in any capacity?
When Prof. Zhengli received a visa to the United States to present at
the Cell Symposium: Emerging and Re-emerging Viruses 2017 conference in
Arlington, Virginia, did she visit the Pentagon or meet with Pentagon officials,
since it was less than a mile away?
When Prof. Zhengli received a visa to the United States to present at
the US-China Workshop on Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution of Infectious
Diseases conference at UC Berkeley in 2018, did she visit Federal research
facility, Lawrence-Berkeley-Livermore Laboratory - in particular, the Department
of Energy's Joint Genome Institute - or meet with government officials,
since it was only a mile and a half away?
Prof. Zhengli's C.V. indicates she received a visa to the United States
to present at the U.S.-China Dialogue on the Challenges of Emerging Infections,
Laboratory Safety and Global Health Security conference on January 17,
2018, in Galveston, Texas. However, such a conference appears to not have
existed. For what purpose did she really come to Galveston - perhaps to
visit the Galveston National Laboratory, a high security National Biocontainment
Laboratory housing several Biosafety Level 4 research laboratories, one
of the only 15 biosecurity Level 4 facilities in the United States and
the largest one in the world located on an academic campus? Was this apparently
imaginary conference merely a ruse for a surreptitious rendezvous? [...]
Considering Prof. Zhengli is the recipient of millions of dollars
in grants and salaries, commands one of the world's leading, most advanced
biosafety laboratories, has performed innumerable research studies into
coronaviruses for three decades and counting - what vaccines, to date,
has she successfully produced? Has she produced any successful coronavirus
vaccines at all? If so, where are they and how have they been publicly
administered? [...]
At the time of the new coronavirus outbreak, or immediately preceding
it, Prof. Zhengli was actively conducting coronavirus experiments and research
at the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory. Notably, the very next day
following the publishing of her coronavirus study on December 11, 2019,
the first victims of Coronavirus 2019-nCoV were reported, as confessed
by Prof. Zhengli herself in her most recent, latest report, posted online
on January 23, 2020: "The epidemic, started from December 12th,
2019, has caused 198 laboratory confirmed infections with three fatal cases
by January 20th, 2020."
Most alarming is the apparent, glaring disingenuousness of Prof. Zhengli's
latest report, which is the only public statement since the official Chinese
acknowledgement of Coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak in Wuhan. On January
23, 2020, she published the report with the allegedly misleading statements:
"Finally, based on our results, it should be expected and worth
to test if ACE2 targeting or SARS-CoV targeting drugs can be used for nCoV-2019
patients. At this stage, we know very little about the virus, including
basic biology, animal source or any specific treatment. The almost identical
sequences of this virus in different patients imply a probably recent introduction
in humans, thus future surveillance on viral mutation and transmission
ability and further global research attention are urgently needed."
However, other Chinese scientists reported on January 22, 2020, "Results
obtained from our analyses suggest that the 2019-nCoV appears to be
a recombinant virus between the bat coronavirus and an origin-unknown coronavirus.
The recombination occurred within the viral spike glycoprotein, which
recognizes cell surface receptor."
Our findings suggest "that homologous recombination within the
spike glycoprotein may contribute to cross-species transmission."
Although this other scientific team incorrectly attributes the originating
species as reptilian (snake) instead of bats, they at least rapidly identified
the coronavirus as a recombinant virus with one of the contributors being
a bat coronavirus, and also discerned in what manner the genetic recombination
occurred to allow for human infection: in a viral spike protein which recognized
the cell surface receptor. But as shown previously, this precise area
of coronavirus study involving spike protein and cell surface receptor
was the focus of Prof. Zhengli's contemporaneous December 2019 study published
the day before the epidemic started. "Coronavirus spike protein
mediates viral entry into cells by first binding to a receptor on host
cell surface and then fusing viral and host membranes," she wrote.
Why would she feign ignorance about this?
Even more concerning, on October 31, 2019, Prof. Zhengli had published
a report entitled Filovirus-reactive antibodies in humans and bats in Northeast
India imply zoonotic spillover, curiously funded by the U.S. Department
of Defense, the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the U.S. Biological
Defense Research Directorate of the Naval Medical Research Center, and
the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India, and edited
by a microbiologist employed by the U.S. Center for Disease Control.
U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency? Can viruses from bats be used
as weapons of mass destruction?
Of note is the fact that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency is an agency
within the U.S. Department of Defense and is the official Combat Support
Agency for countering weapons of mass destruction. Why would they be funding
this project? [...]
All of the studies cited here appear related and interconnected, and
considering the involvement of American defense agencies - in particular,
the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency which deals exclusively with matters
pertaining to weapons of mass destruction and threat networks - there seems
ample reason to be gravely concerned. And that concern remains whether
there's reason to suspect coronaviruses could be used by others as
bioweapons of mass destruction, or that rogue, Deep State operatives
within our own defense departments - colluding with Communists - are developing
or have already developed a bioweapon of mass destruction. In conclusion,
though admittedly much investigation remains to be performed (especially
into the numerous unanswered questions posed in this essay), it seems
the likeliest source of origin for Coronavirus 2019-nCoV is the Wuhan National
Biosafety Laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Further, it
appears to me that, at best, there may be concerted efforts to conceal
the precise nature of the virus, its source, and the parties responsible,
or that, at worst, the dissemination of the epidemic coronavirus is intentional.
Could the actual RNA genome source, sequencing and recombination of the
coronavirus already be known, and could its vaccine have already been developed?
Could it already be patented? Essentially, is this latest global pandemic
threat a Communist cover-up, or a pandemic bioweapon of mass destruction
developed by the global Deep State?
FOR APPENDIX A AND APPENDIX B, VISIT THE LINK.
END
Question: the authors at Global Research, and others alleging that 2019-nCoV
is a US attack on China, do not mention Shi Zhengli. Why not, given that
she is the world's leading expert on bat coronaviruses, and that her lab
is only a few miles from Wuhan seafood market?
(32) update March 19, 2020: Coronavirus reveals American Decline;
investors seek Chinese assets as 'Safe Haven'
- by Peter Myers, March 19, 2020
For the first time, financial media (Bloomberg) reveal that the world's
biggest money managers now see Chinese assets as a Safe Haven.
This despite the contraction in China's economy during Q1, when the
Coronavirus was at its peak.
The perception of China as a Safe Haven contrasts with perceived chaos
in the libertarian West - which failed to act decisively.
The West will be forced to jettison Globalisation.
The relative decline of the US and the rise of China, revealed by their
contrasting management of the Coronavirus challenge, will usher in a new
world of intense competion between the two blocs.
I believe that the Culture War of recent decades will also be ended
by the Coronavirus, not immediately but over the next decade, as internal
divisions dissipate when national survival is at stake.
It's unlikely that these changes would be sought by the Deep State;
therefore, the claim that the Coronavirus was a US attack on China is further
undermined. ==
Coronavirus reveals American Decline
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-17/coronavirus-is-making-china-s-model-look-better-and-better
Coronavirus Is China's Chance to Weaken the Liberal Order
The democratic world order survived the crash of 2008. It may not be
so fortunate this time.
By Hal Brands
As markets gyrate and the world faces the possibility of a punishing
recession, comparisons to the last global economic crisis are inevitable.
The financial collapse of 2008 was not simply an economic shock, it
was also a profound strategic shock to American power. [...]
The 2008 crisis was so damaging because it revealed that economic
policymakers who confidently claimed to have tamed the business cycle
did not realize that their policies had also permitted vast,
systemic vulnerabilities that nearly plunged the world into depression.
What international observers are seeing today is that the country that
claims to lead the world has so far turned in a distinctly underwhelming
performance in dealing with the greatest global crisis of this century.
The coronavirus saga is also certain to set off another round of debate
on the merits of democracy and authoritarianism. The irony is abundant.
It was actually the authoritarian characteristics of the Chinese system
that initially allowed the virus to spread, and some democracies - notably
South Korea and Taiwan - have done remarkably well in responding to the
outbreak. Yet the fact that China subsequently claimed to have gotten
a handle on the epidemic by energetically enforcing a draconian lockdown
of the affected population, while the world's leading democracy dithered
in its own response, will be used by proponents of authoritarianism
to argue that their system is best equipped for crisis.
More recent events are further advancing the narrative. As America
struggles to test its citizens and build adequate stockpiles of basic health-care
supplies, such as masks, the Chinese government (and prominent Chinese
firms) are providing supplies to countries such as Italy and even the U.S.
itself. Beijing has promised additional funds to aid World Health Organization
programs in poor countries, and the Communist Party propaganda arm has
touted these contributions for all they are worth, while also alleging
that the virus somehow originated in the U.S.
Only a few weeks ago, when the impact of the coronavirus was still heavily
concentrated in China, the dominant narrative was that Beijing was once
again the new "sick man of Asia." Now, the theme seems to be
that the coronavirus shows just how badly America's relative power and
prestige have fallen. After 2008, this perception led to a surge in China's
willingness to defy the U.S. and its friends and allies in the South China
Sea, in international institutions, and in negotiations on global responses
to climate change. No doubt the coronavirus will stimulate new Chinese
efforts to displace and discredit American leadership in global affairs.
... ==
Money Managers flee Western chaos for Chinese stability; Chinese
assets now seen as a Safe Haven
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-17/all-the-chinese-assets-loved-by-world-s-biggest-money-managers
All the Chinese Assets Loved by World's Biggest Money Managers
Bloomberg News
March 17, 2020, 6:01 AM EDT
As the world struggles to price the economic impact of the coronavirus,
Chinese assets have offered a spot of relative calm for foreign investors
looking to escape volatility elsewhere.
The country is home to the only stock market among the world's 20
largest that is yet to slip into bear territory. Investors say they
are confident of a stable currency outlook, with the yuan at its
strongest level since May last year versus a basket of trading-partner
currencies. Chinese government bonds are seen as attractive in a world
where treasury yields are nearing zero. [...]
Haven Characteristics
George Sun, head of global markets, Greater China, BNP Paribas China Ltd.
If you watch the correlation between CNH and JPY, Chinese assets
now have quite obvious characteristics of safe-haven assets. We recommend
increasing long duration positions of government bonds and policy bank
bonds. We expect the yuan will head to 6.80 against the dollar in the coming
six months, though at this moment the yuan might also face depreciation
pressure due to USD liquidity tightening. [...]
Not Like the Others
Cary Yeung, head of greater China debt at Pictet Asset Management (HK)
Ltd.
Chinese bonds have low correlation with other asset classes and
continue to offer attractive yields while staying relatively immune
from market volatility. We remain confident that now is a good entry
point for foreign investors given the still-decent yield and a relatively
stable currency outlook. [...]
Easing Expectations J
ason Pang, a fixed-income portfolio manager at JPMorgan Asset Management
Although the rate of reported new virus infections has declined meaningfully
in China, the economy is likely to remain under some degree of pressure.
Taking this into consideration, we should still expect some targeted easing
within this market. That will continue to gradually support Chinese
government bond yields. [...] ==
U.S. coronavirus testing failure: Flawed tests, Red Tape, resistance
to WHO German test
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/16/cdc-who-coronavirus-tests/
How U.S. coronavirus testing stalled: Flawed tests, red tape and resistance
to using the millions of tests produced by the WHO
By Peter Whoriskey and Neena Satija
March 16, 2020 at 6:30 PM EDT
[...] Shortly after publication of the virus's genome in early January,
German researchers announced they had designed a diagnostic test. Then,
within days, scientists at the CDC said they'd developed one, too,
and even used it detect the first U.S. case. ...
In fact, the U.S. efforts to distribute a working test stalled until
Feb. 28, when federal officials revised the CDC test and began loosening
up FDA rules that had limited who could develop coronavirus diagnostic
tests. [...]
Thomas Frieden, an infectious disease physician who served as CDC director
under former president Barack Obama, called on Sunday for an "independent
group" to investigate what went wrong with the CDC's testing process.
He said in the past, the CDC moved quickly to produce tests for diseases
such as H1N1, or swine flu.
"We were able to get test kits out fast," Frieden said on
CNN. "Something went wrong here. We have to find out why so we can
prevent that in the future." ... ==
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Deflationary Depression will break the capitalist
system; Fed must be unshackled like BoJ
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/03/17/moment-monetary-shock-awe-finally-fails-has-arrived-do-do-next/
The moment when monetary 'shock and awe' finally fails has arrived:
what do we do next?
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
17 MARCH 2020 o 6:06AM
The Federal Reserve's Jay Powell is running out of tricks, but he still
has a few more
The world's central banks have exhausted almost all their usable ammunition
under existing rules yet still failed to calm markets or to unfreeze critical
parts of the global financial system.
This moment what we all feared. The danger now is that global recession
- it is no longer 'if', we are weeks into it already - will morph into
something more intractable: a deflationary depression with a wave of
defaults that breaks the capitalist system as we know it.
So what can be done? Let me take an instant stab. Either the rules
are changed fast or we risk uncontrolled global liquidation. The US
Federal Reserve must be unshackled to act as a buyer-of-last-resort
for the corporate debt markets, for great swaths of the credit system,
and for Wall Street equity indexes.
The European Central Bank must acquire powers to act as a genuine
lender-of-last resort for eurozone sovereign states. It must do exactly
what Christine Lagarde refused to do when she blurted out last week that
"the ECB is not here to close bond spreads" - an expression lifted
word for word from the German board member, Isabel Schnabel, which tells
us who is in charge of that institution in the post Draghi era.
This must be backed by a fiscal blitz even greater than in 2008-2009,
with pledges to "socialise" the drastic losses faced by industry
and private firms. What was done for banks last time despite misconduct
must now be done for others.
There must be tax holidays, sweeping state guarantees for firms, credit
forbearance, a temporary suspension of mortgage payments (pushing out the
maturity), and moral hazard be damned - all under the umbrella of financial
repression. Both the US and the EU need fiscal New Deal packages near $1.5
trillion between them to launch recovery, much like the Schumer plan in
the US, and in Europe's case funded collectively through eurobonds.
What has happened over recent days is not a matter of panic. It is accurate
market pricing of 'sudden stops' across all major blocs. It reflects the
collapse in earnings and the spread of insolvency risk. It is a rational
response to the self-evident lack of coherent political leadership or a
functioning G20 world community that is capable of containing either Covid-19
or the economic chain-reaction that might unfold.
As a result, forced sales are occurring on a huge scale across
interlinked markets for mechanical reasons. The pandemic has shown that
the supposedly-safe structure built by regulators after the Lehman meltdown
is a Maginot Line. Critics warned that this would happen when the next
black swan arrived.
As a recent report for the G20 put it: "the risk of an unexpected
reversal of abundant global liquidity hangs over the world economy. Strong
contagion across markets could make the endogenous dynamics of global liquidity
very dangerous." Did anybody heed the warning? No.
Europe will discover quickly - perhaps within days - that
the sticker-plaster job by EU leaders after the EMU debt crisis has resolved
nothing. The failure to establish some form of fiscal union during
the Draghi reprieve leaves the euro system exposed to the sovereign bank
'doom loop' of 2011-2012. In key respects it is even more toxic today.
The Fed did only half the job on Sunday night with its emergency cut
of 100 basis points and its plan for $700bn of QE over the next six months.
But we are getting there. The measures should (fingers crossed) prevent
a repeat of the frightening moves that we saw in US treasury yields on
Friday.
We know roughly what happened. The 'relative value' trade in the Treasury
market so favoured by hedge funds blew up and caused a cascade of deleveraging.
These funds buy cash bonds while selling offsetting futures to pocket the
arbitrage gain. Margins are wafer thin so they leverage up. It is easy
money until the normal correlations go haywire.
The US Treasury market is the anchor of the global financial system.
It cannot break down without causing everything, everywhere, to unravel.
That is what we faced going into the weekend.
The Fed has defused another dangerous landmine by renewing dollar bank
swap lines to fellow central banks. These FX lines are what saved the European
banking system in 2008 when wholesale capital markets froze and Europe
ran out of dollars. Only the Fed can print US currency and act as the
superpower backstop for the world's dollarised financial system. Nobody
was sure whether they still existed in Donald Trump's Washington. Now we
know they do.
What the Fed has not done yet is to shore up markets for commercial
paper, certificates of deposit, and other parts of the credit system. It
has not so far offered limitless cheap loans through the TAF term auction
facility. "We have nothing to announce on direct lending," said
Fed chief Jay Powell. The markets did not like the sound of that.
Some measures require changes in US law. Treasury Secretary Steve
Mnuchin said over the weekend that he would seek to revive the Fed's
suspended emergency powers. "Certain tools were taken away that
I'm going to go back to Congress, and ask for," he said.
The Fed's hands are tied for now. A puritanical bank-bashing Congress
stripped the institution of key prerogatives after the Lehman crisis.
The Fed can no longer rescue a single bank in trouble (there must be at
least five). Nor can it issue blanket guarantees of bank debt and money
market funds, or issue instant loans to stem stress in commercial paper
and asset-backed securities.
In my view, Congress will have to go even further and let the Fed
buy company bonds, ETFs, and other private assets, as the ECB or the Bank
of Japan are allowed to do. In extremis, the Fed may have to soak up
some of the $3.4 trillion tranche of BBB-rated bonds perched precariously
above junk and at risk of a roll-over funding shock. [...]
This structure is untenable. Either Germany and the northern creditor
states bite the bullet and agree to debt pooling, joint bond issuance,
fiscal integration, and a pan-EMU bank deposit insurance - with all
this implies for the evisceration of parliamentary democracy in Europe's
nation states - or world markets will again lose faith in the viability
of monetary union.
They do not have long to make up their minds. ==
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-16/coronavirus-foreshadow-s-bigger-disruptions-in-future
Get Ready, A Bigger Disruption Is Coming
The Covid-19 pandemic reflects a systemic crisis akin to the seminal
crashes of the 20th century.
By Pankaj Mishra
March 16, 2020, 11:00 PM GMT+10
(This is the first in a two-part series.)
As global supply chains break, airlines slash flights, borders rise
within nation-states, stock exchanges convulse with fear, and recession
looms over economies, from China to Germany, Australia to the United States,
we can no longer doubt that we are living through extraordinary times.
What remains in question, however, is our ability to comprehend them
while using a vocabulary derived from decades when globalization seemed
a fact of nature, like air and wind. For the coronavirus signals
a radical transformation, of the kind that occurs once in a century, shattering
previous assumptions. [...]
The First World War not only brought the period of friction-free
globalization to a gruesome end. It also cruelly exposed an intelligentsia
which had believed in irreversible progress and now was forced to acknowledge
that, as an embittered Henry James wrote to a friend in August 1914, "the
tide that bore us along was then all the while moving to this grand Niagara."
As with our own crisis, the seminal crashes of the 20th century - the
First World War followed by the Great Depression - were harder to grasp
because their principal causes were set in motion decades before, and largely
neglected by mainstream politicians and commentators. [...]
For decades now, de-industrialization, the outsourcing of jobs, and
then automation, have deprived many working people of their security and
dignity, making the aggrieved in even advanced Western countries vulnerable
to demagoguery. At the same time, stalled economic modernization or a botched
process of urbanization in "catch-up" powers like India and Russia,
has created, in almost textbook fashion, the political base for far-right
figures and movements.
The financial crisis of 2008, which has caused deeper and longer damage
than the Great Depression, may have discredited the globalizing elite that
promised prosperity to all, creating broad scope for opportunistic demagogues
like Donald Trump. Yet few lessons were learnt from the collapse of global
markets as the tide moved faster to Niagara. This is why the crisis of
our time is as much intellectual as it is political, economic and environmental.
One sign of analytic deficiency is that the prescriptions for multiple
malaises have remained the same in much mainstream politics and journalism:
more economic "reforms," largely in the direction of global free
markets, reheated Cold War slogans about the superiority of "liberal
democracy" over "authoritarianism," and aspirations for
a return to "decency" and "global leadership."
These hopes for a return to the pre-2008 political and ideological status
quo are often leavened with a heightened, if ineffectual, concern about
climate change. Their inadequacy will become clearer in the months to come
when afflicted nations as much as individuals are tempted to self-isolate,
sacrificing many holy cows to the existential urgency of survival. The
coronavirus, devastating in itself, may prove to be only the first of many
shocks that lie ahead. ==
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-16/coronavirus-globalists-may-soon-become-an-extinct-species
Globalists May Soon Become an Extinct Species
The disruptions caused by the spread of the coronavirus mean supply
chains will be moved closer to home rather than in foreign lands.
By A. Gary Shilling
The coronavirus may force countries to move production closer to
home.
The coronavirus's depressing effects on the global economy and disruptions
of supply chains is no doubt driving the last nail into the coffin of
the globalists.
They believe in the theory first articulated by Englishman David
Ricardo (1773-1823) that free trade among nations benefits all of them.
He argued for the comparative advantage of free trade and industrial
specialization. Even if one country is more competitive in every area
than its trading partners, that nation should only concentrate on the areas
in which it has the greatest competitive advantage. He used the example
of English-produced wool being traded for French wine - and not the reverse.
But Ricardo's simple trade model requires economies in static equilibrium
with full employment and neither trade surpluses nor deficits, and similar
living standards. These aren't true in the real world. Also, Ricardo
didn't consider countries at different stages of economic development and
different degrees of economic and political freedom, or exchange rate manipulations
and competitive devaluations since gold was universal money in his day.
Ricardo also didn't factor in trading partners with huge wage differences
such as the U.S. and China. As a result, China can produce almost
any manufactured good cheaper than America. The result has been the huge
and chronic U.S. trade deficit with China. [...]
Largely as a result of these developments, real wages for most Americans
have been flat for several decades, making voters mad as hell. President
Donald Trump played to their plights and was elected by blaming weak
incomes on imports and immigrants. Lack of real income growth also
convinced voters in Europe that mainstream politicians weren't effective.
The result was Brexit and an attraction to far right and extreme left parties.
Globalization not only left the U.S. highly dependent on China for manufactured
goods but also spawned efficient but vulnerable supply chains. Textiles
produced in capital-intensive Chinese factories are sewn into garments
in Vietnam where incomes are only 28% as high, according to the OECD. Semiconductors
from South Korea go into subcomponents in Taiwan and are assembled into
smart phones in China for export to the U.S.
The coronavirus's disruption of supply chains not only unhinges U.S.
imports but also raises national security concerns. China is the world's
biggest supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients and the Indian generic
drug industry, which the Food and Drug Administration says supplies 40%
of U.S. generic drugs, relies on China for most of its active ingredients.
Even after the virus scare subsides, look for more pressure from
Washington for more reliable sources of goods, among other protectionist
measures. Domestic producers will benefit but so too will those in
Mexico. The results will be lower global efficiency and slower economic
growth.
And don't believe the protectionists' siren songs that American jobs
and incomes will benefit. As in the 1930s, the economy-depressing effects
of trade barriers will dominate.
{Comment (Peter M.): the author omits to mention that the protectionist
1950s & 1960s were a golden era. This is routinely omitted by Free
Traders. But the Boomer generation remember.}
(33) Francis Boyle reiterates: COVID-19 is a BioWeapon that escaped
from Wuhan lab
https://freepress.org/article/francis-boyle-talks-about-likelihood-covid-19-virus-bioweapon
Francis A. Boyle Talks About the Likelihood that COVID-19 Virus is a
BioWeapon
by Gary G. Kohls, MD
March 22, 2020
Excerpts from an Interview with Dr Joseph Mercola March 8, 2020
(3261 words)
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/03/08/dr-francis-boyle-bioterrorism.aspx
As you know, a novel coronavirus (initially labeled 2019-nCOV before
being renamed COVID-19 by the World Health Organization) originating in
Wuhan City, Hubei Province in China, is rapidly spreading across the world.
The first case was reported in Wuhan on December 21, 2019. Symptoms
include fever, shortness of breath, severe cough and pneumonia which, in
more severe cases, can lead to impaired kidney and liver function and kidney
failure.
On January 21, 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
confirmed the first U.S. case Ñ a patient in Washington state who
had recently visited Wuhan. Then, the first U.S. death was reported February
29, 2020, in Washington state.
Less than a week later, CBS News reported March 5, 2020, that the number
of deaths had quickly risen to 11 nationwide in the U.S. Ñ 10 in
Washington state and one in California. Not only that, but as of that day,
"The World Health Organization urged governments around the world
to pull out Ôall the stopsÕ" to fight the outbreak. On
the up-side, China "appeared to be over the worst" of it, CBS
said.
All told, as of March 5, 2020, there were 98,067 reported cases of novel
coronavirus infections affecting 88 countries, 80,430 of which were in
China. Worldometer.info provides an easy overview of confirmed cases and
deaths that you can check for the latest statistics.7
COVID-19 Ñ A Weaponized Coronavirus?
In this interview, Francis Boyle Ñ whose background includes
an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago, a juris doctor
(lawyer) degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. in political science Ñ
shares his theory of the origin of this novel coronavirus.
For decades, he's advocated against the development and use of bioweapons,
which he suspects COVID-19 is. In fact, Boyle was the one who called
for biowarfare legislation at the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972,
and the one who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989,
which was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into
law by George H. W. Bush, Sr.
At the time of this recording, February 14, 2020, more than 50,000 people
in China had been infected with the virus. Certainly, it does not originate
from infected bat soup.
As a result of Boyle's antibiological warfare work, which goes back
to the early days of the Reagan administration Ñ a time in which
they were using DNA genetic engineering to manufacture biological weapons
Ñ Boyle has carefully followed "mysterious outbreaks of disease
in both humans and animals around the world" that have appeared since
then.
"My biowarfare antiterrorism act was specifically designed to not
only deal with regular biological weapons but also with DNA genetic engineering
for biological weapons that was just coming into its infancy when the BWC
was being drafted.
"Even though the BWC would cover DNA genetic engineering, I wanted
to make it clear by name that it was covered. I also made it clear [that]
it covered synthetic biology as well," Boyle says.
"So, when these unexplained mysterious illnesses break out, I monitor
them a while and usually I just conclude they can be explained by normal
reasons: lack of sanitation, poverty, things of that nature. But in Wuhan
it seemed pretty suspicious to me.
"There is this Biosafety Level 4 facility there in Wuhan. It's
the first one in China, and it was specifically set up to deal with the
coronavirus and SARS. SARS is basically a weaponized version of the coronavirus.
"There have been leaks before of SARS out of this facility, and
indeed the only reason for these BSL-4 facilities, based on my experience,
is the research, development, testing and stockpiling of offensive biological
weapons.
"For that reason, I stated my opinion: That this Wuhan coronavirus
leaked out of that BSL-4 facility É maybe mid-November É
and the Chinese government has been lying about it and covering up ever
since."
Many Unknowns Remain
The first reported case of COVID-19 infection was December 1, 2019.
Depending on the incubation period, which is still unknown, the initial
lead, provided there was one, might have occurred anywhere in November.
The official estimate is a 14-day incubation period, but a British health
expert believes it's 24 days, and North Korean biological warfare experts
believe it's 30 days, Boyle says.
"As for Wuhan and Hubei Province, they're basically under martial
law. There's no other word for it. If you read the statements by President
Xi and his assistants, they've made it very clear they're at war here,
and that is correct. They're at war with their own biological warfare agent.
"President Xi just fired the party apparatchiks in charge of this
and has brought in trusted military personnel to handle it, as well as
large numbers of PLA [People's Liberation Army] forces saying they're health
care workers. They don't look like health care workers to me. So, as of
now, that's my best reading of the situation."
When asked about rumors the COVID-19 virus might have been stolen from
a high-security laboratory in Winnipeg, Canada, Boyle says:
"It could have been. I want to make it clear that, in my opinion
they were already working on that at the Wuhan BSL-4 facility. They were
working on a biological warfare weapon involving SARS, which is a coronavirus
to begin with.
"We do know that Dr. [Yoshihiro] Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin
É resurrected the Spanish flu virus for the Pentagon, obviously
for weapons purposes, and he specializes in mating the Spanish flu virus
to all sorts of hideous biowarfare instrumentalities. And there was a record
of him shipping his products to Winnipeg.
"Winnipeg is Canada's equivalent of our own Fort Detrick. It's
a BSL-4 facility, and yes, they research, develop tests, manufacture and
stockpile every type of hideous biological warfare weapon that we know
of. So, some of this technology could have been stolen from Winnipeg. I
don't know about that but, as I said, the Wuhan BSL-4 was already working
on this to begin with.
"They had already developed SARS. SARS had leaked out two to three
times before this, and it seems they were turbocharging SARS, which is
what [COVID-19] looks to be. This is a brand-new generation of biowarfare
weapons we haven't seen before.
"Its lethality goes from 15%, as estimated by Lancet, up to 17%
to 18% by a British health official and even Chinese statistics. Its infectivity
is 83%. It can infect maybe three to four people for every person infected.
"It has gain of function properties, which means it travels through
air at least 6 or 7 feet, and É there are reports that even contaminated
human feces give it off, that the human feces radiate off maybe 6 or 7
feet. So, we've never seen anything like this before in the history of
biological warfare, at least in the public record.
"I want to make it clear: I have never worked for the United States
government. I've never had a security clearance. I've never had access
to any type of secret information.
"I just read what is in the public record and the scientific record
and try to draw my own conclusions, and that's what I'm giving you today.
I could change my opinion if people can provide me reputable scientific
evidence to the contrary.
"Right now, I'm standing by my conclusion that it leaked out of
the Wuhan BSL-4, the highest level of the Chinese government has known
about it, they've been covering it up from the get-go, until they informed
the WHO at the end of December."
Despite Laws, Biowarfare Experimentation is Alive and Well Even Involving
Big Pharma, the CDC and the WHO!
As noted by Boyle, the Wuhan lab is a designated WHO research lab, which
may sound odd, considering these facilities specialize in developing and
researching dangerous pathogens that can easily be turned into bioweapons.
According to Boyle, we should not be surprised however, as "WHO
is up to its eyeballs in this type of work and has been for quite some
time." The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the
drug industry also appear to have had their hand in many of the outbreaks
of what appear to be weaponized viruses.
"I won't go through the long history of Big Pharma getting involved
in this. There's huge amounts of money here. I believe the West Africa
Ebola pandemic originated out of the US BSL-4 facility in Sierra Leone,
and [that] they were testing out a so-called vaccine that contained live
Ebola and gave it to these poor people," Boyle says.
"As for the CDC, it has been involved in every É BSL-4 biological
warfare death science you could possibly imagine É It's a matter
of public record that during the Reagan administration, the CDC and the
American Type Culture Collection sent 40 shipments of weapons-grade biological
warfare agents to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, in the hope and expectation that
he would weaponize these agents and use them against Iran É
"Of course, the problem is that when that war was over É
an order was given to U.S. military forces to blow up Saddam Hussein's
biological warfare facilities, and that's not how you deal with biological
warfare weapons É
"[It] contaminated our own troops, and that was a causative factor
in the Gulf War Syndrome that É murdered about 11,000 U.S. troops
and disabled about 100,000."
According to Boyle, the U.S. government spent $100 billion on biological
warfare programs since September 11, 2011, up until October 2015, which
is no small sum.
To put it into perspective, the U.S. spent $40 billion (assuming a constant
dollar value) on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb.
Boyle also estimates the U.S. has some 13,000 life scientists working
within the biowarfare industry.
"Clearly, the Reagan administration, under the influence of its
NeoConservatives who definitely believe in biological weapons and ethnic-specific
biological weapons (you can see that in the PNAC report), were engaged
in the use of DNA genetic engineering for the purpose of manufacturing
biological weapons.
"That is why I gave a Congressional briefing in Washington, D.C.
in 1985. I was asked to do that by the Council for Responsible Genetics
that I work with, which involves the leading life scientists in the world
from MIT and Harvard.
"I spent seven years at Harvard. I have three degrees and I knew
all these people. They asked me to serve as their lawyer and give this
Congressional briefing. I blew the whistle, and then they asked me to draft
the implementing legislation, which I did É
"I want to make it clear I'm not here to speak in their name, I'm
only speaking in my name, but if you look at my book, 'Biological Warfare
and Terrorism,' professor Jonathan King wrote the foreword. So, I have
the leading MIT professor of molecular biology supporting what I'm saying,
if you don't think I know enough science about it."
US Prepares for COVID-19 Pandemic
While there have so far only been a limited number of reported cases
of COVID-19 infection in the U.S., the U.S. military has designated several
detention sites around the country to quarantine Americans, should the
situation take a turn for the worse.
Historically speaking, however, government health officials have been
vastly exaggerating the threat of pandemics in the U.S., including the
bird flu, the swine flu, anthrax, and Ebola.
For example, as detailed in my 2009 New York Times bestseller "The
Great Bird Flu Hoax," then-President George Bush Jr. projected 2 million
Americans would die from bird flu; the best-case scenario taking only 200,000
lives. The final death count in the U.S. from that pandemic was zero.
It generated massive profits, though, as U.S. taxpayer dollars were
used to purchase 20 million doses of Tamiflu. One of the people who was
able to line his pockets from that hoax was defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
who was president of Gilead Sciences when the drug was created.
"[The bird flu] was another DNA, genetically engineered biological
warfare weapon," Boyle notes."It was a chimera. It had three
different elements in it and we were all lucky that somehow they attenuated
the lethality and the infectiveness of the bird flu."
Whether or not COVID-19 will be similarly ineffective in its spread
and lethality remains to be seen. Judging by the statistics in China, "it
doesn't look very good," Boyle says.
Understanding the COVID-19 Virus
According to Boyle, the COVID-19 virus is a chimera, like the avian
flu virus before it. It includes SARS, an already weaponized coronavirus,
along with HIV genetic material.
"That was in a published article by Indian scientists. You could
see the pictures right there, [but] political pressure was brought to bear
upon them so they withdrew [the paper]."
"This is why some scientists are now looking into using HIV drugs
to treat it,Boyle says.
COVID-19 may also have a flu virus mixed in, along with gain of function
properties that allow it to spread a greater distance than normal.
Pandemics Repeatedly Used to Further the Police State
Pandemics have also been used to chip away public freedoms. For example,
the anthrax scare of 2001 was used as the impetus for signing the Patriot
Act, which was the first step in taking away many of our personal freedoms
and rolling out a complete surveillance state. To me, such outcomes are
far more concerning than the risk of infection itself. Boyle adds:
"They used Amerithrax to ram the Patriot Act through, that is correct
É We became a police state É And as I pointed out in 'Biowarfare
and Terrorism,' I think the same people who were behind the 9/11 terrorist
attack were also behind the Amerithrax, but I'm just connecting dots there
É
"What's called Amerithrax came out of a U.S. government biological
warfare weapons lab and program, and I publicly blew the whistle on that
the first weekend of November 2001.
"The Council for Responsible Genetics was having its convention
at Harvard Business School and I was chairing a panel with King and other
experts on biological warfare, on U.S. biological warfare programs.
"As I was walking into the Harvard Divinity School, Fox TV had
a camera crew there and I said, 'Obviously, this came out a U.S. biological
weapons program and probably Fort Detrick.'
"I conducted the session and made the same comment. Then I made
a comment to a Washington, D.C., radio station to that effect [and to]
the BBC, so everyone in the world heard me.
"At that point, someone gave an order that I was never to be interviewed
again by any mainstream news about biological warfare programs. And that's
been the case since the first week of November 2001."
As noted by Boyle, George Orwell's book, "1984", has become
reality. Boyle has since lectured lawyers at DePaul Law School in Chicago
about the totalitarian nature of the Patriot Act.
"Snowden has correctly pointed out the federal government is spying
on everything we say, all of our electronic communications, you name it,"
Boyle says.
"And again, the proof is that I've been completely blackballed
out of the U.S. media. Indeed, if you go back and look at the Amerithrax
attacks, they also hit mainstream U.S. media to make it clear to them that
if they covered this issue they will be killed too."
Bioweapons are Developed to be Used
As noted by Boyle, the U.S. government has a large stockpile of Amerithrax
Ñ a super weapons-grade nanotechnology anthrax with 1 trillion spores
per gram Ñ and that's just the tip of the iceberg of the biological
weapons developed.
What's more, Boyle has no doubt these weapons will eventually be put
to use, as they have in the past. He says:
"There was a tabletop exercise at John Hopkins University last
fall É on coronavirus. 10 Tabletop exercise, that's a euphemism
for a war game. Their estimate was that it killed 65 million people 11
É
"John Hopkins is up to their eyeballs in this Nazi biological warfare
dirty work. They have a BSL-3 facility there É that they proudly
announced on their website É They justify it by saying they're developing
vaccines. OK É How do they do that?
"They go out around the world, and this is a matter of public record,
and scour for every type of hideous disease, fungus, virus and bacteria
you can possibly imagine. They then bring it back to these BSL-4 labs and
develop an offensive, biological agent using DNA genetic engineering and
synthetic biology É set up by the Pentagon under DARPA É
"Once they have this offensive agent, they then proceed to develop
a vaccine, because the agent is no good unless you can have a vaccine to
protect your own people.
"So, they're developing vaccines to have biological weapons, because
a biological weapon consists of two elements: first, the offensive biological
warfare agent in the first place, and second, a vaccine to protect your
own people, and that is what is being done at all these BSL-4 facilities,
and many of the BSL-3s as well.
"John Hopkins has a BSL-3 and they admit they do dual use. That's
what dual use means. They first develop the offensive biological warfare
agent and then they develop the supposed vaccine."
Indeed, Johns Hopkins University is the biggest recipient of research
grants from federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health
(NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF) and Department of Defense (DOD).
It has also received millions of dollars in research grants from the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation.
In 2016, Johns Hopkins spent more than $2 billion on research projects,
leading all U.S. universities in research spending for the 38th year in
a row.
How Can We Best Prevent or Treat COVID-19 Infection?
While it's unclear exactly which treatment is the most effective, my
guess is that Dr. Paul Marik's intravenous vitamin C protocol for sepsis
would be a good starting point, seeing how sepsis appears to be what kills
those who succumb to a serious COVID-19 infection.
Marik's retrospective before-after clinical study showed that giving
patients IV vitamin C with hydrocortisone and vitamin B1 for two days reduced
mortality from 40% to 8.5%. The precise protocol used was 200 mg of thiamine
every 12 hours, 1,500 mg of ascorbic acid every six hours, and 50 mg of
hydrocortisone every six hours. Importantly, the treatment has no side
effects and is inexpensive, readily available and simple to administer.
According to Marik, vitamin C and corticosteroids have a synergistic
effect, which is part of why his combo protocol is so effective. Still,
simply using high-dose IV vitamin C exclusively has been shown to improve
survival in patients with sepsis and acute respiratory failure, reducing
mortality from 46% to 30%.
It also reduced the number of days they needed to remain hospitalized.
On average, those who received vitamin C had by Day 28 spent three fewer
days in the intensive care unit than the placebo group (seven days compared
to 10). By Day 60, the treatment group had also spent seven fewer days
in the hospital overall Ñ15 days compared to 22.
While there are no trials that look at integrating hyperbaric oxygen
therapy (HBOT), my suspicion is that this would provide a powerful synergy
that could get the fatality rate from sepsis even closer to zero. Sadly,
HBOT is not available at many hospitals, and even if it were, it is not
approved for sepsis.
END
My other pages on the Coronavirus are
Coronavirus Remedies - Chloroquine and Herbal Medicines: coronavirus-remedies.html
. Bureaucrats Fiddle while Rome burns
Helicopter money: Central Banks should directly fund government deficits:
coronavirus-finance.html .
END
Copyright: Peter Myers asserts the right to be identified
as the author of the material written by him on this website, being
material that is not otherwise attributed to another author.
Write to me at contact.html.
Thank you Peter Myers, thank you stock, for this posting. May it go viral quicker than a coronavirus! ;-)
ReplyDeleteMay your R-naught soar with the Eagles!
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